One of the key benefits of using a Digital Asset Management System is the ability to manage any rights that apply to the assets within it. This may vary from ensuring a photographer is credited whenever an image is used, to monitoring the use of a key asset that has only been licenced for use over a six month period. Our experience with Asset Bank tells us that most organisations will have slightly different requirements around rights management. In this article, we have a look at a few of the different approaches that we offer.
Extracting rights from embedded metadata
Some assets that arrive into a DAM system already have rights information stored in the embedded metadata layer of the file. This has typically been added by a photographer or by a Stock Photography site. Some configuration is needed on the DAM to pull this information across at point of upload, posting it into the relevant ‘Usage Rights’ attribute field – ready for users to see.
Displaying rights information
Whether rights information is extracted at point of ingest, or is added manually by the person uploading the file, the next step is to present this to the users of the system. It is essential that this information be highly visible to the users, as unlike other attributes, the detail here affects how the asset can be used. Below we can see that both Usage Rights and Credit fields appear high up in the attribute list on the right, and are highlighted in yellow.
Highlighting rights attributes on the asset details page
Repeating rights during download
In addition, it is also useful to re-enforce this information further by repeating it at the point of download. As seen below.
Clicking on download shows important info first
This is configured by ticking the 'Show on Download' checkbox when editing the Usage Rights or Credit Attribute.
You can also add some introduction text to this 'Key information' box if required. This is actually a piece of content managed text that will only appear if there is an attribute shown at this point in the download. If we had an image that did not have any rights or credit info, then neither the attribute nor the explanatory text would show up on download. Exactly what we want.
To edit this piece of text go to:
Admin > Content > Page Copy [edit] > Copy – Download attributes intro [edit]
Default watermarking
Watermarks protect your assets, ensuring users have to go through the download process - so they see relevant rights info, have to go through any download workflows, and to make sure all downloads are captured in reports.
Watermarks ensure downloads are recorded and workflows are respected
Adding a credit directly to an image asset
If you do not feel comfortable entrusting the addition of a credit to the user downloading your image, we offer the ability to overlay a text credit onto an image. You can specify the attribute that you want to use to populate this text, e.g. the Photo Credit from the example above. This is how the download image would then look:
Photo Credit can be directly applied to downloaded assets if desired
Download after approval for some assets
You may have some assets that have been licensed at great expense, or that you worry may be used inappropriately. You would like users to be aware of these files, but require manual intervention to ensure that they are only used in the correct circumstances. To achieve this you can set these assets to have ‘Download after approval’ status for some user groups, making them visible to users (though with a watermark applied to prevent screen-capture). Users can then review the usage rights and decide if they want to request download. The relevant approvers are then notified and can decide to grant approval based on the reasoning provided, or reject the request, explaining why. This is a good way to handle such assets when communications alone through a ‘Usage Rights’ field is not enough.
Some users may have to ask for approval before download access
Capturing intended usage
Want to know where an asset will be used? This configuration option allows you to ask why an asset is being downloaded. This will then appear in the download logs for that asset. This is similar to download with approval above, but without the approval step.
Capturing where someone will use the asset
Expiring assets when the licence period expires
On occasion, there will be a licence agreement that is only valid for a limited period of time. As a result, you should set an expiry date for this at the point of upload. When this date arrives, your DAM system should automatically hide these assets from normal users, mark them as expired and optionally send emails to relevant parties who need to act on this. For example, emailing admin users who can then review the asset usage and decide if the asset was popular enough to warrant re-licencing for an extended period of time.
Optionally set expiry dates
Ensuring rights info travels with the file
You may also want to embed your rights information into the files as they leave your DAM system. This is another level of due diligence, over and above being clear about the rights that apply within the system. Again, with some configuration, this is possible using Embedded data mapping:
Appending the rights info to the file-name
Even though it is easy to inject rights information into the file as it leaves the DAM system, some clients have worried that this is not enough. They quite rightly say that it is not obvious from looking at the file on a desktop that rights in fact apply. A way of addressing this is for the DAM to automatically append the rights information text to the end of the file name at the point of download. E.g. a generic string like ‘Rights Apply’, or if all of your rights options are short enough (in terms of text length) then appending these. See below for an example of how this may look.
'Rights apply' text auto-appended to a downloaded filename
To do this go here: Admin > Attributes > Display Attributes > Downloading and choose to add the credit and/or Usage Rights attributes from the drop-down on the right.
More complex rights agreements
The ability to attach more complex agreement documents to assets and require them to be agreed prior to download. This is useful for when rights associated with an image are lengthy (so an attribute is not the best way to display it), and when you want a user to have clicked “I have read and accept”, to record their intention to comply.
Users have to read and accept an agreement prior to download
Rights displayed in connectors
Key rights information can also be displayed within the Asset Bank Connectors that are available for Adobe CC, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Figma, Canva and more. Ensuring designers and other staff adhere to any restrictions.
Rights information is visible via Asset Bank connectors
This gives you a flavour for some of the ways rights information is managed and conveyed to users within Asset Bank. If you have any questions then please get in touch.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.