maybe and as usual we talk before really knowing what is going on, human nature yep

anyway why would Yuri join exclusivity when he is doing 12k $ per day at PI?

Maybe everybody (except me, I didn't think of it :-P) said on the exclusive questionnaire that the thing they wanted most of all was to make Yuri exclusive, no matter what the terms were. 

good one

not skewing anything dingles, if you were doing that kind of money (even if half) would you put your work in just one agency? (not to mention it is iStock )

I don't know about that, but I'm sure he isn't selling the same images both places.

Yuri's portfolio is on dozens of sites.  He can't be exclusive to IS with that work.  And if he could blatantly enjoy image exclusivity if that mishmash is cleaned up, that opens the gates for everyone to do the same.

I'll take my exclusive royalty level back please, and continue selling my images through better agencies too in that case if his avatar changes to batman, you know something's up...

i think it would make sense to remove his pictures from shutterstock and put them on offset go sell them at a much higher price??

ouch, Yuri, just ouch.

I'm sure this was a carefully thought out move. Best of luck!

Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri

THANKS YURI !!

it's at least 4-5 years i'm trying to tell the guys here that micro is a failed business model, now you're the living proof i was right.

This is actually great news for people who create similar content for microstock sites.


On the other hand, anyone who thinks they can kinda 'force' buyers to pay more by some business judo move, in the current environment will be severely dissappointed, I can assure you of that. I worked at several BTL / ATL agencies, often next to the actual owners or ceos and in daily contact with marketing people. Even when they weren't squeezed nearly as bad as in the current economy, they were so aggressively pushing cots down all the time it was warlike. You showed them a price on anything a notch higher than their expectations, they instantly turned their back and never ever even looked at it again. Everything is just click away and they have many choices.

Getty must of paid Yuri a huge amount to do this.  A clear sign to me that they're losing the plot.  They get rid of Sean and pay for Yuri?  Absolute madness.

Can't blame Yuri, he needs to do whatever is best for him but I don't think it will make much difference to the other sites.  The portfolios of the many are better than one person.  Many people have dumped exclusivity and their content is more valuable than Yuri alone.

Yuri is a good businessman, so yes, a nice little "golden" welcome for the trouble of removing all his files elsewhere is probably not far off.

But Yuri is also not a shy little mouse who just plays along with everything that gets thrown at him. He is as smart as all the other big players and will certainly raise his voice if he feels mistreated. Maybe he will do it in private first, but he also has the legal firepower if necessary.

This will really be fun to watch. And like others have said, I don�t think it will slow down the growth of Shutterstock and the other micros in any way. The amount of great content out there is just amazing. And if Yuri keeps his files off Thinkstock and the other cheap getty sites, they will actually be weaker.

And who knows, maybe he will force getty/istock to evolve much faster than if they had kept Sean on board. Actually if they put him in charge of the ship, he could certainly get it to grow again.