PicScout Unveils Services Platform And Suite Of Products To Enable Online Image Transactions For Users And Licensors

PicScout Image IRC™ Services Platform Equips ImageExchange™ to Identify, Credit and Connect for immediate Legitimate Use of Every Image

- Silicon Valley (USA), 08 OCTOBER 2009 - PicScout, the market leader in worldwide image services and enabler of client image monetization activities, today announced a strategic shift from a single source product company to a services company based upon the PicScout Image IRC™. Image IRC serves as a fingerprinting index, metadata registry and API connection platform for agencies and image license holders. The services platform further positions the company to announce the launch of a new product, ImageExchange™, which provides the connection between buyers of images and licensors. Specifically, the ImageExchange allows web-viewed images to be identified, credited for use and/or purchase, and routed to the licensor for immediate transaction, launching a ubiquitous connection between buyers and licensors.

As the Image IRC proliferates with images from stock agencies, professional photographers and user generated content (UGC) under Creative Common license (CC license), the platform produces a digital fingerprint of each image for the index and connects the image to a metadata registry that stores vital owner and licensor information. No data or other elements are added to images, rather the fingerprinting technology uniquely identifies the image online and then makes the connection with the metadata registry. Through an API, PicScout, as well as proprietary and third party solution providers, will offer products that leverage the Image IRC to connect image buyers directly with licensors for use and/or purchase. In fact, any site can expose image credits and information, and facilitate many different ways of monetization by leveraging the PicScout development tools.

ImageExchange, the newest product in today’s announced PicScout Suite of Products, uses the Image IRC services platform. Equipped with free Firefox add-on tool or at a site that leverages the PicScout API, creative professionals, graphic designers, ad agencies’ personnel, corporate communication professionals and other image buyers use ImageExchange to expose an icon associated with every indexed Image IRC image, then see an image’s metadata and they may choose to be connected in one click to the licensor. As users search for or casually encounter images online, the icon—the international “i” symbol for information—appears in the corner of every participating image. Pointing to the icon, the user reveals the image’s inherent metadata. Metadata can vary per image, but will typically include ownership, license type and a link to purchase and/or use the image or acquire more information.

“With today’s announcements, PicScout embarks on a path to transform image monetization for the industry. The Image IRC services platform leverages our record in proven fingerprinting technology with our ability to provide owner information so that all images get their credit. With credit comes usability, salability and the ability to track image usage. This transforms PicScout from its heritage of image copyright protection, where our ImageTracker product has recaptured more then $50 million dollars for the industry over the last few years, to a proactive model where potentially every time an image appears online, it is a sales and use opportunity for the agency and photographer,” said Amy Love, PicScout VP of Marketing and Business Development. “The new PicScout leverages the Image IRC platform to restore revenue and profitability to image markets where agencies and photographers connect to legitimate image users at the time of experience, and to continue to provide image tracking, as well.”

PicScout is indexing rights managed, rights ready, royalty free images as well as some UGC CC licensed images. The inclusion of these images in the PicScout Image IRC provisions a new imaging economy, and restores revenue and profitability to the image industry.

The ImageExchange add-on will be made available by invitation. Creative professionals wishing to participate in the invitational Beta period will be able to register to request participation at the company’s website beginning October 14, 2009.

About PicScout:
Founded in 2002, PicScout™ www.picscout.com , is the worldwide leader in image tracking and enabler of client image monetization services. Through its proprietary and highly scalable image recognition technology, PicScout created the image copyright protection marketplace through its widely used ImageTracker™ product and is now leading the way for image commerce to become a legitimate Internet economy. A financially independent, privately held company, PicScout has offices in the Silicon Valley, Chicago and Hertzelia, Israel. The company’s products ImageTracker™ and ImageExchange™ utilize the company’s Image IRC™ service platform which is based on its proprietary image recognition technology for its index, metadata registry and API connection to provide a wide variety of solutions involving image protection, ownership, identification, commerce, as well as business intelligence. PicScout is a member of PACA www.pacaoffice.org , CEPIC www.cepic.org , and BAPLA www.bapla.org.uk .