Exciting news -RF Editorial coming to Alamy:

Alamy -getting a heart from me for their license changes

Since first writing about Alamy some while ago I have steadily continued to add a few images to my small portfolio there though, as yet, I have had no sales. That's not a surprise - my port is very small (less than 50 images) and most contributors will point out that it takes a long time to get established there and start gathering sales.

As I wrote before, one of the big limitations of Alamy is that I cannot upload my Editorial images (the majority of my portfolio) because of their licensing system. Editorial on Alamy needs to be set as RM (Rights Managed) whereas the microstock sites use an RF (Royalty Free) license and Alamy will not allow you to upload images that are available under different license types. This has meant that I have been restricted to only uploading my non editorials.

This is changing! New contributor uploading and licensing tools at Alamy are in development and, hopefully, will be available soon. One of these changes will allow for Editorial to be set under a RF license -thus making it possible to upload my whole port including those images on micro sites (with no conflict of license type).

Big news indeed and you might be forgiven for thinking this would have been a major announcement from the agency. Well, not quite. It was mentioned yesterday (in passing) in a post on microstockgroup.com in relation to something totally unrelated. I spotted it and wasn't quite sure I was actually reading and understanding what had been posted. To make sure, I posted back highlighting the comment and asking if this really meant we would be able to upload the same editorials we have on micro using the new RF license. The Alamy rep (thank you James!) replied that yes it did mean just that.

I soon realised that not many members at MSG were noticing this news because of where it was posted so I started a new thread there highlighting this big change. Link here: Microstockgroup (there's a link in that to the original post from Alamy). 

There is certainly a case to be made for having a different port at Alamy than what you put on micro sites and if you are just starting out this should be given careful consideration. However, if like me, you have long established ports on the microstock sites then this will just open up a whole new set of buyers to our images. Won't Alamy buyers just look for your images on cheaper sites? Truthfully, some might but experience suggests that professional image buyers do not have the time or inclination to "shop around" to save a few pounds of somebody else's money. Alamy buyers include National newspapers and other media outlets who are more likely to stick to them. My experience with the much missed agency PictureNation was that I still got higher priced sales through them despite my images being available on cheaper micro sites. That's my opinion but, obviously, everyone has to use their own judgement on what's best for their portfolio.

There's no fixed time yet for the implementation of this change -other than soon. I'll be watching and getting ready to upload my Editorial content. Regards, David.