The PLUS Coalition aims to simplify image rights management through global standards and a central registry. The coalition includes photographers, stock agencies, publishers, museums, and others. The PLUS Registry will serve as a hub connecting individual registries to provide metadata on rights holders, images, and licenses. It will launch in phases, starting with a beta release and expanding to allow public registration of individuals, organizations, images, and licenses. A Cultural Heritage Working Group was also formed to maximize benefits to institutions like museums in preserving and providing access to images while mitigating legal risks.

1. MCN 2010, October 28, 2010
Jeff Sedlik, President of PLUS
Alan Newman, Board Member, PLUS Coalition

2. Fundamental Principle.
• Images must be more easily:
• Accessible
• Usable
• Manageable
• Source should be identified
• Licensing terms unambiguous

3. Who is PLUS?
• Creators: photographers, illustrators.
• Distributors: stock agencies
• Users: book publishers, newspaper
publishers, magazine publishers, web
publishers, motion picture/TV, ad
agencies, designers, the public.
• Cultural Heritage: Museums, libraries,
researchers, educational institutions
• Other: software developers, attorneys,
picture researchers, artist reps,
manufacturers, standards bodies, etc.

4. PLUS Coalition
• A collaboration between all
communities engaged in
creating, distributing, using and
preserving images.
• Mission: “Simplify the
communication and
management of image rights”
• Non-profit, neutral, apolitical,
global.

5. PLUS Coalition – Our Work
• Global standards for expressing
image rights.
• A Registry identifying artists, rights
holders, archives, and image
metadata.
• PLUS-IDs: Unique identifiers for every
artist, rights holder, archive, license,
and image.
• Education.

6. PLUS Standards
• Define and categorize image rights
metadata.
• Glossary, License Schema, Media
Matrix, Unique Identifiers, Rights
Packages
• Multilingual codes support global use.
• Facilitate access and understanding.
• Support increased automation.
• A free resource.

7. The PLUS Registry
• Non-profit, industry-neutral “hub”
connecting all registries, worldwide.
• Repository for metadata identifying:
• Rights holders, archives, images,
rights info
• Persistent unique identifiers.
• Multilingual user interface
• API access lets other applications
connect for submission and search.

8. Registry: Individuals & Organizations
• Instantly identify and contact any creator,
rights holder or archive, anywhere in the
world.
• Free registration.
• Search by name or by unique “PLUS-ID”
• Forensic search features: old contact info,
aliases, misspellings, © registrations,
publications, subject matter.
• Alternative contacts and heirs
• Mitigates orphan works issues.

9. PLUS Registry - Images
• Access to rights and descriptive metadata
for any image.
• Common metadata schemas supported.
• Determine rights holder, archive name and
other critical info for any image.
• Search by PLUS Image-ID.
• Search by image recognition.
• Allows metadata to be added to images
previously distributed.
• Mitigates orphan works issues.

10. The PLUS Registry

11. PLUS Registry – License Info
• Access to rights metadata for:
• Any image
• Any license
• Manual or Automated Registration.
• Update/Revise at any time.

12. Populating the Registry in “Phases”
1. Beta release now
2. Soon open for public
registration
3. Invite image registration
4. Invite license registration
5. Provide API for DAM systems,
licensing platforms and other
applications.

13. Cultural Heritage Working Group
• Mission: Maximize benefit to museums,
libraries, research institutions and the
public.
• Participants: All are welcome.
• Founding participants are:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty
Museum, Israel Museum,
National Gallery of Art, Boston MFA
• Email info@useplus.org

14. Mission of Cultural Heritage Group
• Preservation: Robust, persistent,
easily accessible rights metadata.
• Access: Works are more easily
accessible and usable.
• Rights & attribution metadata
communicated in universal format.
• Reduced liability when sharing/
offering/distributing images to
public & other institutions

15. Institutions Can More Easily
• Identify public domain & openly
distributable images.
• Manage image rights.
• Provide info to the public.
• Obtain licensed images.
• Collaborate internationally.
• Resolve orphan works
instances.

16. The Work of the Working Group
• Suggest rights metadata use
cases
• Suggest revisions to PLUS
standards to maximize benefit
to museums.
• Establish cultural heritage
metadata profiles for the
Registry

17. Thank You.
• Please participate in the PLUS
Cultural Heritage Working
Group. Listserve to launch in
near future.
• For more on PLUS, visit:
• www.usePLUS.org
• Questions or Suggestions:
• info@usePLUS.org