Asset rights clearance: Critical next steps in the DAM life cycle

Abstract

The proliferation of digital media content combined with the increasing complexity of tracking these digital assets across multiple formats, platforms and geographies creates new challenges for licensors and licensees. Many organisations have adopted digital asset management systems to manage the creation and distribution of their digital assets; however, the next critical challenge is to protect their digital intellectual property (video, music, etc), gain visibility on its usage, and further monetise its potential. This paper will detail three key drivers for asset rights management and clearance and will consider how to extend a digital asset management system with an effective solution and strategy to protect, manage and monetise intellectual property. It covers key considerations when introducing these clearance processes and systems and details best practices. Topics include: managing intellectual property by gaining visibility into the organisation’s assets and connecting assets and contracts together — understanding what assets you have, what contracts you have and how they relate; tying asset ingestion to contract flow in order to drive asset rights and financial obligations, and centralise all rights and contract terms in a unified source; why storing rights information in a digital asset management system can quickly become limiting as the organisation grows, asset volumes increase and the asset data become more complex and conditional; and what an effective data rights model will need to support and key requirements in a rights clearance engine.