[November 24, 2008] ImageSpan Services Offers Image Suppliers Quick Implementation of New Licensing Standards Tweet (Wireless News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ImageSpan announced that its digital content licensing and royalty settlement service offers image suppliers and other content providers a path to implementation of licensing standards that have been adopted by three publishers. According to the company, representatives of McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Pearson all announced at a recent event in New York that they will adopt licensing standards created by the Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS) Coalition, an international non-profit organization dedicated to simplifying and facilitating the communication and management of image rights. The publishers said that they will adopt the PLUS Picture Licensing Glossary in their contracts and that they encourage image suppliers to begin embedding PLUS license metadata in all images within one year. The PLUS standards allow rights and attribution information to travel within image files in a machine-readable format that provides instant access and universal understanding. ImageSpan's licensing technology and Web-based services already comply with standards created by PLUS that simplify the process of granting, obtaining and managing the permissions necessary to use digital images. "We are very excited that these major publishers have all agreed to support the PLUS standards," said Iain Scholnick, chief executive officer, ImageSpan. "We view this as a huge validation of our support and participation in the PLUS Coalition, and our market-leading integration of the PLUS standards in ImageSpan products. For three years, we have worked with the PLUS Coalition to ensure that our licensing technology complies with PLUS standards, and simplifies and streamlines licensing processes. A growing number of major customers are adopting the PLUS standards, and we stand ready to meet the needs of these customers and their image suppliers. Our experience and expertise with the PLUS standards uniquely positions us as the product-of-choice for image licensing." ImaqeSpan allows image licensors and licensees to benefit from the PLUS licensing standards through its LicenseStream Creator PRO service for individual content creators and small agencies, and through its API for media companies, advertising agencies and content production businesses, the company said. Said Jeff Sedlik, president and co-founder of the PLUS Coalition, "In addition to supporting and participating in the PLUS initiative, ImageSpan has integrated the PLUS standards in LicenseStream, allowing image suppliers to provide their customers with embedded PLUS license information, streamlining previously manual licensing processes, dramatically lowering costs and accelerating time-to-market for digital content." ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) ((Distributed on behalf of 10Meters via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com)) ((10Meters - http://www.10meters.com)) Copyright ? 2008 Wireless News [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]