Szurkebarat,
These are two good points that were clarified for me by Jeff Sedlik, co-founder of PLUS, when he called me to answer some questions I had after joining an ASMP webinar about copyright protection.
With regard support, PLUS was not instigated by photographers but multi-media groups looking for some standardisation initially of licensing format. Check out the PLUS website for Board of Directors, Advisory Council and Support PLUS members, and you will appreciate the breadth of industry and world-wide support behind PLUS.
An additionally important benefit of the PLUS registry, which will allow potential buyers to contact creators via metadata and personal information stored with PLUS, is the concept of image identification even with all metadata stripped. An orphan image, registered with PLUS, submitted by an interested buyer, will be identified and related contact information, held by PLUS, supplied to that buyer. Legitimate researchers and buyers want to able to find creators of orphans and not risk copyright infringement. These groups are apparently just as in favor of image id and copyright protocols as are photographers. As a registry member, photographers also will have password-protected ability to update metadata and contact information as time goes by.
Of course, the flip side of the coin, deliberate copyright infringement, is a different story, but everything that can be done to link image and photographer should be taken advantage of.
Paul
