Photo DAM: How to keep track of photo permissions and digital rights

What is a photo DAM?

A photo DAM (digital asset management) system is a centralized platform that stores, organizes, and manages photographic assets, along with the usage rights, release forms, and licensing data attached to them. It gives marketing and communications teams a single source of truth for determining whether a photo is cleared for use, by whom, and in what context. At the core of that system is digital rights management, the technology that controls access and usage of copyrighted or licensed digital products, protecting files from unauthorized copying or sharing. Together, these capabilities reduce copyright liability and eliminate the manual tracking that slows content operations.

Seattle Aquarium

As an organization that engages in both public education and advocating for conservation policy, Seattle Aquarium uses a ton of visual assets in their campaigns. Their photos and videos come from a wide variety of sources, including volunteer content contributors, so it’s important that the organization keeps track of the various usage rights for each piece of content.

With a simple file server, it was difficult for the team to sort out which assets they could or could not use. One of the biggest reasons Seattle Aquarium chose Canto was to manage digital rights easily and avoid potential copyright infringement issues.

“Canto has really helped us in terms of search functionality and metadata. A big thing for me was understanding permission rights for those assets,” said Pam Lamon, digital marketing manager at Seattle Aquarium.

Seattle Housing Authority

Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) provides affordable housing and services for almost 36,000 people with low incomes. Photography helps them communicate their impact and fight stigma against affordable housing tenants.

The communications team has thousands of photos of the tenants they help, including families and children. These photos all need photo release forms that tell the team whether or not they can use the photos in materials and campaigns. Before using a DAM, the team had to track these release forms manually on a spreadsheet; with Canto, it’s easy for anyone to update and access this critical information.

“One of the things we really needed was a way to connect photo release forms with the photos themselves,” says Susanna Linse, SHA’s communications manager. “With Canto we are able to relate files and easily access the associated documents through the asset’s information page.”