One of the most important components of a media collection is an effective usage rights workflow. Because MediaGraph’s roots are in the world of stock photography and footage, it’s been central to the application from the start. MediaGraph has long had the ability to rights-tag files on upload, including the ability to attach contracts and releases to uploaded files. In MediaGraph, we’re making this process even more robust, and redesigning it for many-to-many communication.
MediaGraph was originally designed as the licensing application for Tandem Stock.
The many-to-many problem
As a media library platform for organizations, it’s important for us to address the issues created by crowdsource media. The use of smartphone cameras for all forms of communication create unique challenges. Media files must be centralized and discoverable. And an organization needs to know what rights they have to the files.
- Photos, videos and other documents that are created by employees during the course of their normal duties are typically the property of their employers.
- Photos and videos may be submitted by staff, customers or other stakeholders for use in social media and other communications.
- Some files may be sent to the organization with no explicit rights granted, or with publication rights specifically excluded.
It’s important to have a way to memorialize all of the above scenarios and more. And this problem is only getting bigger as we use visual media for ever-increasing purposes. It’s a hole that is getting deeper every day, and it’s time to stop digging.
Rights Packages
In MediaGraph, we are giving our customers a way to help make sense of the media they possess. This will allow the organization to build media libraries with clear, filterable rights status. This will add value to the media and reduce risk. We do this be means of Right Packages which include several components that add clarity to ownership and usage permissions for all parties. Here’s a basic outline of how they work.
Purpose Driven
The framework we have created for Rights Packages allows the organization to create purpose-driven presets that clearly communicate the rights which are being conveyed.
- These rights can be described in plain language to the uploading party.
- They can be backed up by a full legal document if desired.
- Account administrators can specify which kinds of rights are allowable for certain submissions, so that only qualified files enter a certain pipeline
- Files can be filterable according to general rights statu.
- Rights status can be used to trigger protective actions, like watermarking or download prevention
- When appropriate, account admins can allow for upload of contracts and releases, which are attached to the files.
(Note that some of these functions have not been switched on yet, but they everything above is either functional or coming in the beta period)
See it in action
The best way to communicate the power of rights Packages is to show it in action. Check out the video below to see how Rights Packages work.
https://vimeo.com/478300125