The American Society of Media Photographers began distributing its record-making $1.3 million foreign-royalties windfall, received close to a year ago through the Authors Coalition of America. The Picture Licensing Universal System Coalition received a grant of $85,000. The ASMP Foundation, the organization’s philanthropic arm that supports educational activities in photography and other creative industries, received $100, 000.
ASMP recognizes the work of the PLUS Coalition as of great benefit to professional photographers and exactly in line with the Authors Coalition mandate to use the funds to further industry education and advocacy. Design to simplify and improve the efficiency of image licensing, PLUS standards allow rights and attribution information to be incorporated within image files in a universal machine-readable format. PLUS standards continue to gain acceptance among publishers and industry service providers, with recent adoptions by McGraw-Hill, Pearson and ImageSpan, a start-up offering image producers e-commerce and transactional support.
The $100,000 grant to the ASMP Foundation will be used to expand its educational programs. At the national level, ASMP will work with the Society for Photographic Education, while local activities will be handled by ASMP’s 39 chapters throughout the U.S.
ASMP was established in 1944 and currently unites over 7,000 professional photographer members. Its primary activities are promoting photographers' rights, providing education in better business practices, producing business publications for photographers and helping to connect them with buyers.