ALAMY IMAGES FOR A DOLLAR!

•  Alamy Images For A Dollar! – Stock agency Alamy has ruffled contributor feathers with its introduction last month of Limited Use, a scheme for selling images for as little as a dollar. Contributors who opted-in to new terms last Autumn, not knowing exactly what they were signing up to, now found their images exposed to Limited Use. Under the new terms, contributors were locked in, but Alamy quickly relaxed this as a furore developed. [expand story >>>]

As is usual with Alamy, the furore developed publicly on their Internet forum. Stock photographers have a lot invested in their filings. This is threatened by the new phenomenon of microstock. All agencies must respond somehow. But Alamy's contributors are generally opposed to the company selling their images as microstock. There was a feeling that Limited Use was simply microstock by another name, and that photographers had been duped into unknowingly signing up for it. Alamy insists this was not their intention – the rather opaque route they took to Limited Use was necessary for competitive reasons, they say.

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