Alamy terminates contributor contract after model release issue

Oxfordshire, UK, 27 February 2008. Alamy has terminated the contract of a contributor for falsely stating that an image had a model release. The company, the largest stock photo site on the web, acted swiftly after being contacted by a member of the public who had appeared on an image marked as released but was confident he had never signed one.

The image was immediately removed from the site pending an investigation. After admitting he had provided false information, the contributor had his contract terminated and all images were removed.

Writing on the company blog, Alamy’s head of content Alan Capel said: “Given that the contributor had knowingly provided false information, we felt we had no choice but to terminate the contract of the contributor and remove all of their images with immediate effect.

“We are seeking to gain more of a foothold in the commercial market where there is greater sensitivity to the need for releases. By providing the new annotation tools we are giving contributors the opportunity to make their images available to this market if they meet the necessary requirements.”

He told contributors: “We take breaches of the contributor agreement very seriously but we also want to stress that, by providing correct release information, you are protecting yourselves against any legal action.”

 

Read the blog at:

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/02/25/2681.aspx.