That's an incredible achievement. I hope the marketing for sales is equally aggressive.

@BaldricksTrousers: Thanks! I got to admit, we are quite proud of achieving that in such a short period of time. By the way, excellent Nickname - big fan of Blackadder here
Our marketing strategies are equally aimed at photographers and sellers, yes.

Hi Marius. Congrats on the achievement.

It's good to see some new DP representation here in the forum. There have been a number of discussions here about DP, and I was hoping that you might be able to clear up some of the questions that have been raised. Particularly the questions about the company's connection to DepositFiles, Dmitry Sergeev's connection to DF, the unclear location of your offices (do you actually do business in Florida or is that just a satellite office?), etc. Any chance you could comment on these things?

Last time anyone from DP came here to comment on this issues they mostly just made threats against anyone who them up. I'm hoping you might be able to more adequately address some concerns that I and other folks here have.

Thank you too helix7!

Let me first tell you, that back then we were still extremely fresh and had to learn a lot of stuff along the way and departments as PR and so on weren�t yet settled properly. So, as well meaning as they were, the colleagues back then probably weren�t sufficiently prepared for representing a stock agency on a forum.

We are still relatively young in the market of course, but we have become bigger and more professional constantly to a point now, were we can say, that we are here to stay and play our part in the business.

About Mr. Sergeev. He did play a part in the website Depositfiles, yes. That has ended even before he founded Depositphotos though. There was never a connection of the sites in terms of photos coming from the one site that may then be downloaded for free on the other. I myself am not an expert on how filesharing sites work, but the actual(!) concept is about sharing legal files that may be shared freely. I know, that it is possible to share photos there as well � without the approval of the artist. And I understand that this is very frustrating for a photographer or illustrator. I can assure you that Depositphotos have no interest in providing those images in any other way than to publish them on our site (or over one of our APIs), sell them legally and provide the agreed share to the photographer. We have been doing well exactly that way for the past 2 years and we are not about to change that. An image that is taken from our database and then put on any filesharing site is an image that we lose out on as well, so we want to prevent that from happening just as much as you do. We know that the recipe to a successful stock agency is valuing customers and contributors equally. As much as we are interested in selling images, we know very well, that the contributors are the ones providing our site with the excellent images that we have. And to keep them happy is just as important as ensuring sales.

About the office. Yes, the HQ is in Florida. There is an office  � if you are in the area feel free to pop in and say hello .  We also have offices in Britain and Russia. On the site you�ll find numbers of each office. Feel free to just call and ask us anything you want. Or just ask me in this forum if you prefer that.

I�m not around 24/7 but will make sure to answer quick enough.

Not surprised!  good site!

Thanks, Marius. That was a very thorough and helpful reply.

Thank you for your honesty as well. Highly appreciated.

As much as I'm still not comfortable with DP's background and the former connection to DF, I do appreciate your honesty about it. In the past, representatives of DP seemed more interested in covering it up rather than just addressing it. And I think that made it a bigger issue for me than it would have been if the DP folks were just honest about it. Honestly it's not that big a deal. Plenty of people who were involved in file sharing sites are now running legal businesses. It's the dishonesty about it that was the most troubling.

Well, I do admit that mistakes have been made then. I wouldn�t really call it dishonesty though. As I mentioned earlier, the first attempt of contributing on this forum was done just after the company was started and the people who were writing here, didn�t really know how to react to the situation. They were new to the company and to the business as well. So for them a past of the founder in a site like depositfiles and the current involvement in depositphotos didn�t pose any problem and any business relation. And, as I wrote earlier, it isn�t and there is no direct connection - but I of course understand the concerns that people had. The problem then was though, that they didn�t know how to react, as they were new to the whole thing and didn�t know what this could lead to. So they chose a wrong way and didn�t clear up things back then. That was naive and wrong, as it would have been so much easier to get things started better right from the beginning. And the even bigger mistake was, not to clear that up later on. I know that we have missed out on that.  But that�s that. For the future I�ll be happy to go about things more transparent and direct and open and be a direct contact person for whoever has any queries about Depositphotos.

I have no doubt that DP is a legal and upstanding business, and has probably always been. The founder's background is morally questionable, but I could have overlooked that a long time ago if the DP representatives just gave honest answers instead of misleading info and threats.

It's good to see some better representation from within the company, and I appreciate you coming in here and responding directly and openly to some of these concerns. You probably won't see me signing up as a contributor any time soon, but it's refreshing to read some honest responses to questions and to know that DP is interested in being a productive and positive part of the stock business, and I can keep an open mind about it. I will be interested to see how the company continues to grow and what things look like with the next 5 million images.

Thank you.
I don�t feel that the background of our founder is morally questionable, but I respect your view on it. This is a decision that everyone has to make for themselves. And you are of course always welcome to contribute whenever you feel like it.
With going from 4 to 5 million in 3 months, I didn�t even dare to speculate when the next 5 million will be reached .

Thanks to lagereek and sadstock as well for the nice words.

Welcome here Marius.  It was great to see you guys at the Microstock Expo and get to chat.   It's also nice to see another site challenging the iStock's of the industry for market share.

...Well, I do admit that mistakes have been made then. I wouldn�t really call it dishonesty though...

Maybe not dishonest, but not completely honest either. I think we both agree that mistakes were made, and they could have handled things better. Glad to see you have a different approach towards community relations and I think that will go a long way with smoothing things over with anyone who has concerns, myself included.

...I don�t feel that the background of our founder is morally questionable, but I respect your view on it...

Thanks. I guess I say morally questionable from the point of view that musicians viewed Napster. I was in a similar position as them, where my intellectual property was being freely distributed through sites like DepositFiles, RapidShare, etc. But as I mentioned earlier, folks from companies like Napster went on to be part of other businesses that weren't involved in file sharing, and no one holds their past against them in their new ventures. So I suppose it's unfair of me to judge Dmitry or anyone else based on their past, and on my opinion of those past businesses.

It's an issue I'm happy to drop and move on from. Maybe someday I'll even be a DepositPhotos contributor (if the site would have me). Until then, I'm glad to see some better DP representation here and I think you are doing some good work in communicating with contributors and keeping us informed. Thanks for that.

Marius, thank you for making yourself available. It does mean more to the contributors than you might think. Does DP have a method for reporting and or stopping use of unauthorized images with your watermark on them? I checked the site but couldn't find anything obvious. Should I just contact support? I will send my own DMCA but it seems to have more clout coming from an agency. Thanks

Just because a person comes onto the internet and spouts some great Marketing and Public Relations 101 stuff, doesn't mean I actually believe it as the truth. Most of the people posting in this forum hide behind anonymous names. I understand the reason, but don't expect me to believe much of what you say.

I don't know if there really is a DP office in FL and I am not about to drive there just to find out. Whatever Marius says may well be the truth, and maybe Leaf knows these people personally, but all the talk hasn't changed my mind at all. I'm in no great hurry to jump on any more bandwagons...too many people jumping on the "let's post some stuff on the internet for sale and make millions off it, while we pay the people who do all the work pennies" free ride train.

edit: I read the other thread, too, Microbius. The problem with the internet is that DP can come back here, apologize profusely, backpedal on what he said, maybe remove or change some wording on their site, but continue to do what they have been doing, without any one of us being able to prove differently.

I too am very glad Depositphotos has stepped up with greater willingness to engage the concerns of their suppliers.
Marius, could you please take a look at this thread:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/ranting-general-stock/the-12-most-baffling-genres-of-stock-photo-explained/msg228699/#msg228699

And let us know if it is actually DP's policy that anyone is free to take our Intellectual Property from your site and use it as they please as long as they leave your watermark intact, or was this misreported?

Hello Microbius. Thanks for the link, I had not seen that earlier.

First of all let me say, that I�m not working for Depositphotos' legal department, so please don�t expect too much legal insight from my side.

I can of course clarify Depositphotos' position on that matter, though.
Publishing those images is of course not legal and not tolerated by us. There IS a violation and the answer to the email from one of my colleagues was false and should have been a lot more detailed and explaining and I apologize for that.

However, we can only react on a limited number of those offenses. We are sending out several DMCA�s but we can�t find every violation on the web and react on it. Those images are available on Google search and neither we, nor any other agency, can afford to not use Google search.
Our capacities are limited and we must concentrate our work on the direct service to our contributors and clients. Looking up every watermarked image that is used without paying and taking action on that is like the fight of Don Quixote against windmills.

This answer will probably not make you entirely happy and neither does it make us happy, but we have to be realistic and see that we can not stop this use of images completely.

What we can say however is, that every photo from yourself, that you uploaded to Depositphotos and that you find watermarked on a site where it definitely has not been paid for, you can direct to us and we will send out a DMCA to that site.

But again, please don�t get the impression that I am here to push people into joining our site. I just want to inform and discuss.

That is so wonderful so could you discuss perhaps the allegations that your Ft. Lauderdale operation is just a mailbox cover for a Cyprus based group owning Depositfiles as one the leading providers of illegal content?  
How will you counter Rapidphotos and Megauploadphotos for instance or weren't they so clever?
My regards to Yaroslav and I understand you will have to ignore "From this moment all paranoid requests will be ignored by us."
http://www.microstockgroup.com/new-sites-general/discussion-for-those-submitting-to-depositphotos/40/?wap2
Just a thought of course and no pun intended - as always. After all, the Sopranos had a very legit waste management business. I'm quite sure you're not allowed to elaborate on the origin of your capital as this seems to be private, and who cares.  

I really don�t know any Yaroslav in our company, otherwise I would have passed your regards on .

Great!

I have already explained that the communcation in the beginning was not how it should have been. We had a lot to learn back then and we have and now I am here to handle questions and queries in a polite, honest and direct manner.

Yes everybody has to learn. So wonderful. I admire how those tracks were covered and I honestly think our (well not mine) photos are in good hands. So I wish you the best of luck in Fort Lauderdale