Best Business Practices for Photographers [211]
We will discuss several different issues that affect your licensing and could drastically affect your revenue if you are not attentive to them. Throughout this chapter, we will turn to a free resource for all photographers, the Picture Licensing Universal System, or PLUS, for short.
Just what is PLUS? From their website, PLUS is "a cooperative, multi-industry initiative—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. Through standardized language and a machine-readable coding architecture, image licenses become more transparent, more fair, and much simpler for everyone."
The PLUS website (www.UsePlus.org) goes on to outline each of the parts:
The PLUS Picture Licensing Glossary.The first component of PLUS is the picture licensing Glossary. Obviously, in order to reach common agreement on license parameters, we must have a common understanding of the language that forms a license. This free online listing, as well as being published in book form, was created and scrutinized by a broad cross-section of professionals.
The Media Matrix.A hierarchal structure including all existing media and all options for the inclusion of images in all media, and applying an identifier to each type of media and to each option. Provides a standardized database for use in providing a common menu structure for the selection of media rights in applications and licensing platforms.
The License Format.A standardized, machine-readable schema for expressing an image license. Allows for the expression of image rights in standardized fields, using standardized terminology. Allows image rights to travel within image files and other documents in a format that provides for automated embedding and ingestion of rights information by DAM systems, ecommerce platforms, web browsers, and all applications. Allows immediate access to image rights information by anyone in possession of an image file. Provides a roadmap for professionals to instantly understand how to express license information in a format that any other professional in any industry or location can readily understand.
Media Summary Code.A means of encoding a license with multiple media usages into a string of characters that may be easily decoded into a human readable license description in any language. Allows for highly efficient and precise communication and understanding of image rights offered, sought, or obtained, whether domestically or internationally.
PLUS Packs and Custom Packs.License packages representing the most commonly licensed image rights. Allows photographers and stock agencies to offer familiar, uniform, convenient bundles of rights. Each licensor independently determines pricing. Photographers, stock agencies, and their clients may also create and share (over social networks and otherwise) custom packages precisely meeting their needs.
PLUS-ID.Globally unique persistent identifiers for entities, licenses, and images. Allows precise identification of any rights owner, license transaction, or image. Allows for highly efficient communication of rights and attribution information by embedding a single identifier in an image file, while storing all other metadata remotely in a publically accessible registry, preventing loss or manipulation of stored metadata by unauthorized parties. As the metadata is stored remotely, a license may be updated or renewed at any time without altering the metadata in the file and without issuing a new image file with new license metadata. The IDs forever refer to current contact information for the licensor, license, and image.
I will go over each of these sections, with examples detailing how we use the system, so you can apply it to your licensing moving forward. As I do, it is important to understand that PLUS in no way addresses pricing