Alamy

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Alamy

logo
legal form private photo agency, (2020): PA Media Group
founding 1999
Seat Abingdon , Oxfordshire , United Kingdom
management Mike Fischer , James West
Branch Rights management of image rights and license-free images and videos
Website www.alamy.com

Alamy is a UK-based stock photography company . He has been part of the British news and information company PA Media Group since 2020 . Alamy's library consists of over 201 million photos, vector graphics, videos and 360-degree panoramic images. The database is fed from the works of photographers , picture agencies and archives. The worldwide participants upload up to 100,000 new images to the company platform every day. On the one hand, these images can be license-free, but there are also files on the platform that require a license.

overview

The picture and film library, founded in 1999, offers an online collection of artistic and editorial picture material in a network of over 100,000 photographers and 650 picture agencies and archives from 150 countries. Its clients are spread around the world, spanning the globe, and hail from the publishing, design, advertising and mass media industries.

The head office is in the UK and the administration is in Milton Park , near Abingdon, Oxfordshire . There is a development and operations center in the "Techno Park in Trivandrum" ( Kerala / India ). The sales office is located in Brooklyn ( New York / USA ).

Photo of the USFWS, on Flickr with a PD mark for free use [2] The same image is watermarked for sale by Alamy without any information on the photographer and source [3]
Original image on Flickr
Alamy watermarked image

Alamy maintains an online archive of well over 200 million photographs, vector graphics, 360-degree panoramic images and hundreds of thousands of videos contributed by picture agencies, independent photographers, both professionals and amateurs, as well as news archives, museums and national collections. Files with "public domain" content copied from Wikimedia Commons are also included. The customers of this online service come from the image and publishing sectors, the advertising industry and the general public.

history

Alamy was founded by James West (born 1948) and Mike Fischer (born 1963) in 1999. West was a graduate of Edinburgh University and Executive President ( CEO ) of "Alamy". Mike Fischer is the CEO and co-founder of “RM plc” on the London Stock Exchange .

  • In 2002 Alamy won a Quality Award for Technology at the Electronic Multimedia Awards. The purpose of this award is to promote further development in digital media. The award was made for the introduction of a software tool with high graphic resolution and around the clock use for customer use. This technical innovation for virtual CDs was supplemented for license-free image CDs.
  • In 2003 the company introduced an international distribution network. As a result of the subsequent improvement in sales, royalty payments to subscribers increased in 2006. Since 2002, Alamy had paid out over $ 100 million to its imagers.
  • In March 2004, one million images were already available on the platform and in October 2007 ten million images were available online.
  • In 2010 Alamy created an app for iPad to preview images.
  • In 2011 Alamy launched a live broadcast and in 2012 it began expanding it to broadcast live images to mobile phones.
  • In the same year 2011 the collection consisted of 25 million images and the company expanded international sales with teams in Germany, Austria and the Middle East.
  • In 2012, “Alamy iQ” was introduced for videos with a particularly high level of creativity.
  • In 2015, Alamy's “Stockimo” app for iPhones was named the best customer-oriented app in “The Drum's Marketing on Mobile Awards (MOMAs)”.
  • In 2017 Alamy named Andy Harding as its new CEO, but James West resumed his position as CEO in 2018.
  • In December 2018 Alamy announced that it would increase its commission share from 50% of the sales value to 60% and reduce payments to providers to 40% of the amount requested by the customer. This announcement was set a few weeks later on the previous 50% commission for material exclusively available on Alamy.
  • In February 2020, Alamy, the leading provider of stock photography, was acquired by the UK news and information company PA Media Group. The co-founder James West accompanies the image archive as a consultant and member of the advisory board. Clive Marshall, CEO of the PA Media Group, cited the reason for the purchase decision that the customer base will be expanded significantly and that the PA Media Group will for the first time have a strong presence in the international market. With this acquisition, the PA Media Group gains access to the stock photography market for the first time.

criticism

  • On February 16, 2015 Alamy informed its members about changes to the Contributor Agreement. These led to opposition from bodies of the photo industry, the National Union of Journalists and the Union of Publishing Photographers (Editorial Photographers UK - EPUK) and were convicted. They said Alamy was trying to establish a permanent and irrevocable contract for images in order to continue selling them even if the contract with the photographer is terminated. The commission would put copyright at a disadvantage in an extensive and unreasonable way for a long time. Alamy responded that the change was only in line with the way the company operates and would not constitute a significant change. This answer has been described as misleading and evasive by documentary photographer and Alamy contributor David Hoffman, for example.
  • Carol M. Highsmith sued Alamy in July 2016 for the sale of unidentified photographs. She had given her images to the United States Congress Research Library and donated them for free use. She asked for a $ 120 settlement fee for the sued violation of her interests. It was not the photograph in question that was subject to the violation of the law, but rather that Highsmith's authorship of the original work was violated. However, the plaintiff's claim was rejected because it had given up its copyright by giving it to the public domain .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Global Still Images Market 2015-2019. ReportLinker, December 2014, accessed April 29, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Photo by Robyn Gerstenslager / USFWS .: Kendra Chan (left) and Karen Sinclair, fish and wildlife biologists. United States Fish and Wildlife Service Flickr stream, March 30, 2013, accessed April 29, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Kendra Chan (left) and Karen Sinclair, fish and wildlife biologists. Stock Photo: 178236349 - Alamy Archived from the original on June 4, 2018 ; accessed on April 29, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Alamy CEO: AlamyRank not disadvantaging specialist contributors . EPUK: November 16, 2006, accessed April 29, 2020
  5. ↑ Alamy 100% royalties - Introducing stock photography and Alamy . September 7, 2015, accessed April 29, 2020
  6. ↑ Julia Dudnik Stern: Alamy Reaches 10 Million Images , Reveals Financials, August 10, 2007, accessed April 29, 2020
  7. ↑ Alamy launches live news service . October 18, 2011, accessed April 29, 2020
  8. ↑ Alamy shakes it up with Alamy iQ . November 16, 2012, accessed April 29, 2020.
  9. ↑ Recognizing the industry's finest . The Drum / Carnyx Group, November 12, 2016, accessed April 29, 2020.
  10. ↑ PA Media Group to acquire Alamy, the global photography company , accessed April 29, 2020
  11. ↑ Stock giant Alamy is now owned by the British PA Media Group . Redbox.de, February 11, 2020, accessed April 29, 2020.
  12. ^ Photographers' council concerned by Alamy contracts . NUJ - National Union of Journalists, March 11, 2015, accessed April 29, 2020
  13. ↑ An open letter from EPUK to Alamy regarding the new contributor contract terms . EPUK – Editorial Photographers United Kingdom and Ireland, February 26, 2015, accessed April 29, 2020
  14. ↑ Alamy in the rear view mirror . EPUK, May 27, 2015, David Hofman, accessed April 29, 2020
  15. ^ Court Dismisses $ 1 Billion Copyright Claim Against Getty . PDNpules, November 22, 2016, accessed April 29, 2020
  16. ↑ Application , United States District Courtsouthern District of New York: Carol M. Hightsmith vs. Getty Images
  17. ↑ Unauthorized Use of Alamy Image (s)