The F Stops Here

Tens of Millions of Images Indexed, Registered with Metadata, and Ready to Connect for Legitimate Transactions between Image Owners and Buyers

SILICON VALLEY, California, October 13/PRNewswire/ — PicScout, the market leader in worldwide image services and enabler of client image monetization activities, today announces worldwide support from North America, Asia, and Europe for the company’s newly launched enabling services platform and suite of products to credit images and facilitate real-time transactions between buyers and sellers of images. The first group of agencies representing many thousands of photographers from around the world, leading trade organizations, and digital image rights groups acclaim and support PicScout Image IRC(TM) and ImageExchange(TM) in a show of solidarity to assure that every image gets its credit.

“PACA applauds the efforts of our PACA corporate sponsor, PicScout, to provide a technical solution that connects images to the licensor,” said Cathy Aron, Executive Director, PACA. “PACA supports technological developments that help prevent unauthorized uses and developments that provide users a way to easily find the owner/licensor.”

“The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) applauds the efforts of PicScout in the creation of Image IRC, which facilitates the connection between rights holders and image consumers in the digital marketplace,” said Eugene Mopsik, Executive Director, American Society of Media Photographers. “Image IRC makes it easy to directly license Google images by providing essential image information and connection. Initial participation looks great. We look forward to additional growth and will be offering this service to our members for their consideration.”

“The initiative that PicScout has taken to track online, license, and protect the ownership of the imagery of professional photographers worldwide is not only outstanding, it is crucial in our rapidly evolving online marketplace for imagery,” said Shannon Fagan, President, Stock Artists Alliance.

At the time of announcement, PicScout has added many global agencies and platforms, along with their proprietary images to the Image IRC as clients. The roster includes leading global agencies and all types of license platforms–rights managed, royalty free, microstock, and UGC Creative Commons. Leading companies in the industry under contract include Time, Inc. http://www.timelifepictures.com, along with many agencies, including Aflo http://www.aflo.com; Dreamstime http://www.Dreamstime.com; Glow Images http://www.glowimages.com; Maground http://www.maground.com; Masterfile http://www.masterfile.com; Mauritius Images http://www.mauritius-images.com; PlainPicture http://www.plainpicture.com; SeaPics http://www.seapics.com; and Trunk Archive http://www.trunkarchive.com. As PicScout IRC and ImageExchange clients, these companies have enrolled millions of images with Image IRC. Each image is indexed with a digital fingerprint; registered with associated metadata that identifies vital owner and licensor information; and through ImageExchange, available for real-time connections between image buyers and licensors for use and/or purchase.

These rights managed stock agencies also license PicScout ImageTracker(TM) which provides the copyright protection. Separately, PicScout and the PLUS Coalition http://www.usePLUS.org will announce an alliance later this week.

“Time, Inc. publishes our image collection on Google Images; the Image IRC technology enables us to quantify actual use and distinguish between consumer and syndication traffic, as well as to gain insight to ways we can better monetize our images,” said Jeff Burak, director of Business Development, Life. “It is important for images to be credited, and we are pleased to see the industry moving toward that goal.”

“Masterfile is enthusiastic about PicScout’s newest technology. It creates a seamless connection between potential clients and licensors for images published online – anywhere, anytime, in any form,” said Masterfile CEO, Steve Pigeon. “Our years of experience with PicScout in automated tracking of online images for copyright management assure us that this will be another commercially successful initiative.”

The many millions of images now available through PicScout Image IRC can be recognized by anyone equipped with the free PicScout Image Exchange(TM) Firefox add-on. Those equipped see all Image IRC images marked with the universally used “i” information icon, wherever they may encounter one online. Pointing to the icon exposes metadata that identifies the image’s owner or licensor and the connecting link to buy/use the image directly from the licensor. http://www.picscout.com/images/stories/pdfs/3STEPS.pdf

“PicScout’s Image IRC is a major innovation for photographers and stock professionals alike. It will be a tremendous asset to anyone who licenses photographs for a living,” said Dan Nelson, Attorney at Law, The Nelson Law Firm. “PicScout Image IRC makes it easy for anyone to secure rights for high quality photographs and should eliminate the argument that someone may have been oblivious to a copyright.”

“We are pleased to announce the first round of industry clients participating in the Image IRC beta period and the valued encouragement from the industry at large. We look forward to ongoing announcements about additional Image IRC and ImageExchange clients in the near future, as the industry imperative has become that every image gets its credit,” said PicScout CEO Offir Gutelzon. “We believe–and today’s news about our industry and Image IRC corroborates the view– that when credit is restored, appropriate value can be assigned and recognized for every image and legitimate transactions ensue.”

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)