the PLUS Coalition

     Once upon a time I remember hearing that the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) was helping on a project that was supposed to make licensing images simple, as well as help combat the miss use of the Orphaned Works Act. It was called the Picture Licensing Universal System or PLUS for short.  The first time I had heard about PLUS was way back in 2006, and then again two years ago in 2008. I hadn't heard much of anything about it since then and I had figured that we were going to be left to fend for ourselves for a long while waiting. What they were proposing would require the cooperation of the pretty much everyone that had anything to do with licensing and managing images on a world wide scale, I can't even begin to think about how much time that would take.

    Today I opened my monthly news letter from ASMP and right there the first header read; "PLUS Registry To Launch This Fall". That is right, not only did they not abandon the project, but they got a ton of work done under the radar (Or at least my out-of-date preoccupied radar ). The PLUS Registry is going to launch this fall as the back bone of the PLUS Coalition. Their mission statement is simple: "The Picture Licensing Universal System is a cooperative, multi-industry initiative and is a three part system that clearly defines and categorizes image usage around the world, from granting and acquiring licenses to tracking and managing them well into the future."

     Here is how is how it works. The PLUS Registry consists of three parts and is the back bone of this system. The first part is the Picture Licensing Glossary and it is a catalog of terms providing vital information about how the images are allowed to be used. The glossary is maintained and updated by working professionals across a broad spectrum of Image-related fields.

      The second part is the Media Matrix; This is a database of known media categories created and defined by image creators and consumers alike. It identifies and specifies between different types of media. It then organizes them by similar type and gives them a uniform billing code, this makes it easier for creators and consumers to agree on how the images are going to be used.

     The third part is the License Format; This is the part that ties the other two together. It is a machine-readable data form attached to the image as meta-data, and it describes how the image is to be used, who it belongs to, and the terms it is licensed under. The benefit of this is that it helps to identify, track, analyze, and archive your images. It generates a string of machine-readable code that embeds itself into the image as a line of text or code in the meta data. For example the rights to full page publication show up as 4SKZ, and reproduction rights in English appear as 8LEN. This code is generated by machine and translated by machine making misinterpretation virtually impossible even across language barriers.

     The registry is maintained and constantly updated by the PLUS Coalition. The coalition is a group of top level working professionals in a broad range of image related industries, including both creators and consumers. Having so many professionals maintaining the registry is crucial in an industry where terms change and the ways of using images are created just as fast as they can be written down. The coalition helps keep everything up to date.

     To make things even easier for us, they have made free plug-ins for nearly all the Adobe products from creative suite 3 to creative suite 5 including Bridge and Lightroom. As well as a decoder and generator on the PLUS website so that even people without the Adobe products or plug-ins can still take advantage of the system. I have been testing it out myself and find it very easy to use, most everything you do with drop down menus and buttons and it generates the rest for you.

     After playing around with it for a little while I am really happy with the PLUS Registry. I think that it is very well defined, well implemented, and the support it is getting is outstanding. It is supported by almost every photographic and design association, the DAM book (digital asset managment), and the top three stock photo agencies Corbis, Getty, and Jupiter, and lots of other people in the related industries. I think that this is an amazing system for informing others on how your images are to be used, as well as tracking and maintaining your collection.

     Because PLUS is free to use and so universal there is no reason you shouldn't be using it from this point forward. It is an invaluable tool that they are giving to you. The strength of PLUS system relies on people using it, the more people who start using it the more strength it has. Go spread the word and implement it for yourself into your archiving and selling work-flow, it can only help.

      Possibly you don't see the benefit though. Lots of photographers now-days are using Lightroom, Aperture, or Bridge for their archiving. All three programs are great at asset management and have the ability to embed meta-data into your work to identify that the work belongs to you, and you can even write how it is to be used. The problem with this is that when you send images in to a client a lot of times they get saved in a digital vault and don't go anywhere for a long time, sometimes the client then thinks that they own that image, or if you did embed your own license in it there is often room for interpretation. The PLUS System is very definitive and exact, as well as being universal. Often different people use the same word to mean different things and can cause confusion, but the meaning and intent of everything is defined in the PLUS Registry clearing up any confusion. It is always possible for meta-data to get stripped or lost, but there is no sure way to protect your work which is why it is always best to use multiple systems. For example using PLUS as well as including your name in the file name of the image.

     On one last note though, the PLUS system is not an alternative for Copyrighting. It is a very strong supplement for ensuring and enforcing your rights, but in no way protects your work. The PLUS System is a guide on how the images are to be used, and some people don't play by the rules. Copyrighting your work is the only legal way of protecting your work, and nothing is a substitute.