The Sausalito, Calif.-based ImageSpan is a licensing and revenue-automation platform offering rights-management, licensing and billing services alongside delivering creative content. ImageSpan’s LicenseStream, a service that simplifies the manual rights-clearance and licensing processes for content owners, is now offered on a subscription basis to over 100 million designers and other content creators using Adobe Creative Suite 3.
Accessible directly from Adobe Bridge CS3, the media manager that supports media transfer for Adobe Creative Suite customers, LicenseStream allows content creators to define rights to their work and then sell that work online. It eliminates person-to-person negotiations, the need for attorneys, and licensing documentation, cutting licensing costs by up to 90%, according to ImageSpan.
LicenseStream also provides a transparent process that avoids liability, copyright infringement and transaction settlement. The Flash-based application uses licensing standards created by the Picture Licensing Universal System Coalition, to which ImageSpan is the exclusive license-automation provider. PLUS standards simplify the process of granting, obtaining and managing the permissions necessary to use photographs and illustrations.
Among ImageSpan’s other products is CurbStream, a solution for content buyers that include advertising and media companies. CurbStream provides on-demand access to rights-cleared, licensable content created by 7,000 local videographers and photographers all over the world.
LicenseStream and CurbStream have already penetrated the ad business.
In June, both technologies were incorporated by Omnicom Group‘s Zimmerman Advertising of Ft. Lauderdale. The agency embedded LicenseStream and CurbStream into its Pick-n-Click Ads product, which helps auto dealerships create local advertising.
The same month saw a similar deal with Visible World. The New York-based video advertising company integrated CurbStream into its IntelliSpot Dashboard, which is used by advertisers to create, customize, deliver and monitor video spots.
This latest alliance with Adobe offers ImageSpan access to a growing, long-term customer base of art directors, graphic designers and photographers. ImageSpan founder and CEO Iain Scholnick said that the deal “uniquely positions ImageSpan to become the platform of choice for intellectual property licensing worldwide.â€