he's got a 100K images collection spread out on dozens of agencies so he's the only ones with the hard data to judge what's going on, what's selling good or bad, etc etc

if he moved to greener pastures is because it's worth it, simple as that.

now, no idea how much worth it, maybe just 10% more or maybe 50%, who knows, but he wouldn't do it to lose money or just to save the hassle of dealing with 20-30 agencies instead of one or two.

as for "the cr-ap", well we dont know if getty agreed to take 100% of his collection of if they will just pick the good ones, so the "leftovers" can pretty much be moved into istock or thinkstock.

and for what we know he could also produce and resell photos for other image factories !

I don't have any problem with Yuri's plans but this "cult of personality II." doesn't entertain me anymore.

Be creative and send your best summer shot to the competition. Winning photo must be taken with the Scoopshot App. All competing photos can be viewed at www.scoopshot.com You can vote for your own favorite there.
The winning shot will be selected by the "King of Microstock", Yuri Arcurs, on September 30, 2013.

Suppose Yuri made a post and nobody answered.

you guys all seem to forget that nowadays to sell a product like hotcakes you NEED exposure, you need to be famous, popular, or at least well known in your market niche, no matter if because of a good or bad reputation.

once you're famous you can even ask donations on crowdfunding sites, you can write books, do interviews, get your BS heard and written in blogs and forums and newspapers, no matter what you actually say, it's all about getting your name known.

random readers who never heard about Yuri will believe the mumbo jumbo about him being the king of microstock, they will not double check if other image factories are bigger than him and if they keep a low profile to avoid unwanted attention by the tax office or whatever.

so may you like it or not he's doing the right thing and actually he's not even pushing his image too much as he's not updating his blog regularly and he's not posting cr-ap on FB or Twitter like so many others.

all he needs to keep his status now is to post a new press release to us villains and plebs once every 3 months, maybe coupled with an editorial article about the situation of the micro/macro market .. people will like it and write 50 pages of comments like here on MSG ...

"and for what we know he could also produce and resell photos for other image factories !"
so all we can be the ex of IS and then produce some craps to other sites??
as i did the observation, some guys did it as i told, using multi-id to be ex on iS and produce other files to other site, i guess they all learn from yuri...lololol

Quote from: Xanox on August 03, 2013, 10:28
you guys all seem to forget that nowadays to sell a product like hotcakes you NEED exposure, you need to be famous, popular, or at least well known in your market niche, no matter if because of a good or bad reputation.

once you're famous you can even ask donations on crowdfunding sites, you can write books, do interviews, get your BS heard and written in blogs and forums and newspapers, no matter what you actually say, it's all about getting your name known.

random readers who never heard about Yuri will believe the mumbo jumbo about him being the king of microstock, they will not double check if other image factories are bigger than him and if they keep a low profile to avoid unwanted attention by the tax office or whatever.

so may you like it or not he's doing the right thing and actually he's not even pushing his image too much as he's not updating his blog regularly and he's not posting cr-ap on FB or Twitter like so many others.

all he needs to keep his status now is to post a new press release to us villains and plebs once every 3 months, maybe coupled with an editorial article about the situation of the micro/macro market .. people will like it and write 50 pages of comments like here on MSG ...

Basically I agree. On the other hand - it's like calling David Beckham "King of football" and with all respect to him it would be nonsense. Marketing doesn't make somebody a king.

Have we noted his 59261 images on pixmac? http://www.pixmac.com/author/YuriArcurs
"Liars deal with liars"

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on July 26, 2013, 16:18
I agree that 5 USD per task is ridiculous, but so was 1 USD per download for Istockphoto.com back 7 years ago. We are looking at the birth of a new industry. It's not refined like microstock is today. Mistakes are ok, small income is ok, bad images are ok, it does not mean it is where it will end. You have to see the potential long term.

So if something happens literally outside my front door, so it doesn't cost me a penny to take it, and I upload it, for $2.50 to me (unless one of my neighbours shoots the 'winning' shot, minus tax, I find I'm more or less giving away my rights:

Scoopshot.com terms of delivery and use 20 May 2013
5.1.The Photographer shall provide to the Service all Exclusive rights to the Photo for a minimum of 48 hours from the moment of the delivery of the Photo. A longer period for the Exclusive rights may also be required by the Service.

5.2.Should no Buyer purchase the rights specified in Section 6 of this Agreement within the above mentioned Exclusive right period, the rights in the Photo shall be partly returned to the Photographer.

5.3.After the above mentioned Exclusive rights period has lapsed, Scoopshot shall have the continuing right to offer Photos to the Buyers through the Service. After the Exclusive rights period has lapsed a contemporaneous right to use and sell publishing rights in the Photo shall remain with the Photographer. Photographer shall have the right to, independently, sell, at the most, a Publishing License to the Photo according to the Section 6.2 of this Agreement, i.e. not All rights.

5.4.Scoopshot's right to forward the copyrights to the Photo to the Buyers shall take effect immediately after the Photographer has delivered the Photo to the Service.

Clearly, Yuri is looking for the naive.
You might as well give your photos away for a credit, and not have to bother saving the sales microreturns information and adding them to your Income Tax form.

Isn't transferring copyright illegal in Germany?  Still don't understand how a photographer can let other photographers lose their copyright for $2.50?  Can't compare it with the start of microstock because the photographers still have their copyright and can still make money from photos they were selling very cheap 10 years ago.

This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.

Quote from: sharpshot on August 04, 2013, 15:56This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.

Let's hope so. If it succeeds, it will be a significant step toward further degrading the value of photography and artists' copyrights.

Quote from: EmberMike on August 04, 2013, 16:17

Quote from: sharpshot on August 04, 2013, 15:56This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.

Let's hope so. If it succeeds, it will be a significant step toward further degrading the value of photography and artists' copyrights.

i think it can only damage amateur photographers and in any case buyers will only get cr-appy snapshots, what else do they expect for a few bucks ? not certainly pro images.

i mean this stuff is the real rock bottom in terms of price, professionals will not lose any sleep about it.

Quote from: EmberMike on August 04, 2013, 16:17

Quote from: sharpshot on August 04, 2013, 15:56This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.

Let's hope so. If it succeeds, it will be a significant step toward further degrading the value of photography and artists' copyrights.

+1  The site owners are the only ones who will benefit, it will further degrade content value for the rest of us.

Quote from: Xanox on August 04, 2013, 17:11

Quote from: EmberMike on August 04, 2013, 16:17

Quote from: sharpshot on August 04, 2013, 15:56This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.

Let's hope so. If it succeeds, it will be a significant step toward further degrading the value of photography and artists' copyrights.

i think it can only damage amateur photographers and in any case buyers will only get cr-appy snapshots, what else do they expect for a few bucks ? not certainly pro images.

i mean this stuff is the real rock bottom in terms of price, professionals will not lose any sleep about it.

High quality HCV images for 16 cents?

Quote from: Ron on August 04, 2013, 17:33
High quality HCV images for 16 cents?

yeah I mean this stuff is clearly targeting Flickrs, students, and random amateurs.
Anyone joining such a low-profit business is not a pro and never will.

so all in all i don't see it as a menace honestly, even if people gave away the images for free rather than 2-3$.

Riddling soil gives me a lot of time to muse on stuff, and my latest random wondering is whether it's a way of him headhunting talent easily - see who can actually take great photos on a phonecam (it can be done), then training them up to do things to his template style.

Did he / is he about to run his 'annual' bootcamp this year (2013). It doesn't seem to have been as much hyped as last year's, and a quick Google only has links from last year to advise people to keep watching for 2013's, but nothing more.

^^^Seems like a lot of money to invest to do that.  I can't think what he's doing, a bit like I can't work out the Getty strategy with istock.

Quote from: sharpshot on August 04, 2013, 15:56
Isn't transferring copyright illegal in Germany?  Still don't understand how a photographer can let other photographers lose their copyright for $2.50?  Can't compare it with the start of microstock because the photographers still have their copyright and can still make money from photos they were selling very cheap 10 years ago.

This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.

I doubt the legalese was looked over by competent professionals.  The "forward the copyrights to the Photo to the Buyers" probably is intended to refer to the regular licensing of rights.  The whole terms paragraph reads like one of those "new agencies" that copies bits and pieces from various existing sites.

Maybe the String should have read- " Yuri Arcurs First and Probably His Last Public Statement" ...

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on August 04, 2013, 20:09

Quote from: sharpshot on August 04, 2013, 15:56
Isn't transferring copyright illegal in Germany?  Still don't understand how a photographer can let other photographers lose their copyright for $2.50?  Can't compare it with the start of microstock because the photographers still have their copyright and can still make money from photos they were selling very cheap 10 years ago.

This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.

I doubt the legalese was looked over by competent professionals.  The "forward the copyrights to the Photo to the Buyers" probably is intended to refer to the regular licensing of rights.  The whole terms paragraph reads like one of those "new agencies" that copies bits and pieces from various existing sites.

That was my thought, too - along with the possibility that the thing might be a bad translation from German with a lot of nuances getting lost along the way.

So they now have 1.4mil USD to pay for a decent translator   Would be interesting to see what contributors to the site are actually getting in to.

And, as referenced over on the Alamy forum, he has 11093 pics and videos over there.
http://tinyurl.com/oseq2oz, some via Tetra Images, where he has 1353 http://www.tetraimages.com/search/smsx_photographer_Yuri_Arcurs.html]images:
[url]http://www.tetraimages.com/search/smsx_photographer_Yuri_Arcurs.html[/url]

It's interesting that one of the leading "people-pic" guys puts up 40 or 50 quite similar shots of the same model from the same shoot, whereas I generally restrict myself to four or five images from my culinary shoots. With that sort of output per shoot, portfolios of 50,000 to 100,000 images are a bit less impressive than they look at first sight. Especially if you have a factory of producers handling the processing and uploading.

Remember he's not taking all, maybe not even many, of the photos himself.
While I was looking for his Bootcamp 2013, I came across this:
http://peopleimages.com/support/view/8

Question?
asked by Utku O.
Can I sell my images on peopleimages.com?
I would really like to sell my images on your site! How can I achieve this?

Official Answer
Answered by: Alessa Digsmed
Hi Utku,
This is a site selling only Yuri Arcurs' images, and images shot by photographers that have passed the Yuri Arcurs Bootcamp, so unfortunately, this is not a possibility. All images on the site are Yuri's so to speak.

So I guess in theory some iStock exclusive who has passed the Bootcamp might be selling at PI or even across many sites under the Yuri moniker. Wonder if he buys out all rights or pays a royalty?

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on August 04, 2013, 21:54
It's interesting that one of the leading "people-pic" guys puts up 40 or 50 quite similar shots of the same model from the same shoot, whereas I generally restrict myself to four or five images from my culinary shoots. With that sort of output per shoot, portfolios of 50,000 to 100,000 images are a bit less impressive than they look at first sight. Especially if you have a factory of producers handling the processing and uploading.

composition is probably the key ingredient of stock photography, it's laughable that many agencies are hellbent against "similars", many buyers need more space for the copywriting, others are ok with the subject filling the frame, and then again i could use different DOFs, different lighting, color or B/W, you just can't have it all with 3-4 images at all.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 04, 2013, 22:38
Remember he's not taking all, maybe not even many, of the photos himself.
While I was looking for his Bootcamp 2013, I came across this:
http://peopleimages.com/support/view/8

Question?
asked by Utku O.
Can I sell my images on peopleimages.com?
I would really like to sell my images on your site! How can I achieve this?

Official Answer
Answered by: Alessa Digsmed
Hi Utku,
This is a site selling only Yuri Arcurs' images, and images shot by photographers that have passed the Yuri Arcurs Bootcamp, so unfortunately, this is not a possibility. All images on the site are Yuri's so to speak.

So I guess in theory some iStock exclusive who has passed the Bootcamp might be selling at PI or even across many sites under the Yuri moniker. Wonder if he buys out all rights or pays a royalty?

I think it's like for any other photo studio, the assistants don't keep the copyright nor are they allowed to resell the image for stock or whatever, and this applies also to many news agencies and newspapers.

His team is probably earning a fixed salary with small bonuses.

Believe it or not it happens also for some famous painters, they hire a crew of art students, they learn to paint exactly as their master and then the paintings are produced in limited 20-30 signed copies by the artist, no one knows they were painted by random students, it's an open secret and it can easily backfire.