500px announced yesterday that they are collaborating with search giant Bing, in order to give it's users the opportunity for some crazy exposure. Bing already showcases a new image on it's main page every day. The change is that now 500px will curate the image collection via user submitted images. Yesterday's image was from Alisdair Miller, a member of 500px for two years. The cool part about all this is that they aren't just using your image, they are posting information about the photographer and linking to their site. This isn't some familiar situation where a company wants to use your stuff and give you a tiny link on some obscure section of their site. Finding out where the image is from is very easy via a pretty obvious info button on the bottom right of the site.
Opting in is pretty easy, you just add images into the "Bing Home" section of your organizer n 500px. Once you enter your photos a staff of 500px & Bing editors will review the best of the best, selecting the top picks. Selected photos will be displayed with attribution, a link back to your 500px profile, and a short bio about the featured photographers for some insight into the photographer behind the photo. They are pretty clear about the fact that Bing does allow the image to be downloaded with a "personal use" license, but also that you retain all the rights to your image.
That's the selling point for me. I'm pretty happy to see a company offer an opportunity like this and not try to grab rights in their lengthy terms of service.
Via 500px Blog
I think I'll be setting up my free account today...
cool but who use bing? ^^
are the users getting paid for this? Microsoft should be paying to use the photos and if not, its just another rights grab!
No, I was contacted by 500px to use one of my photos on bing.. no money.
then this is not for me... This is considered commercial use and should be paid as such. We are talking $1,000+ for a single image. Do NOT give in!
Then don't sign up, but if it's a photo you won't be profiting from, then you might as well throw it into the bowl for free exposure. It's good for photographers just getting off the ground, and who knows, maybe one of their users would contact you for a purchase...