AI, Personalization and Provenance Were Front and Center at 2024 IDMLC
By Tom Smith, DMLA Board Member and CEO, Gado Images
In October 2024, over 200 members of the digital media licensing industry gathered in person and virtually for the 2024 International Digital Media Licensing Conference (IDMLC), hosted by the Digital Media Licensing Association.
The location of this year’s IDMLC was a huge part of the conference’s success. We gathered together in New York City, meeting aboard the historic USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, now part of the Intrepid Air and Space Museum.
Several topics stood out during this year’s conference.
New Thinking on AI and Provenance
As has been the case for several years now, artificial intelligence—and especially generative AI—was at the center of many conversations.
We learned from leaders like Ashish Jaiman of Microsoft Bing about the great lengths being taken to ensure responsible development of visual AI. Other technical leaders in the space, including Google, Steg AI, Vaisual, and more, presented and shared their insights with us.
Provenance of images was another big focus of this year’s conference. Many of the presenters agreed that the doom-and-gloom phase of artificial intelligence was nearly over. As of a year ago, lots of people thought that AI would destroy the industry, but it has not.
Instead, it has highlighted the importance of initiatives like the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and standards like C2PA, which allow users to verify the provenance of an image, tracking it to the marketplace on which it was sold and ultimately to the photographer who took it.
Andy Parsons of Adobe shared his knowledge of these initiatives throughout the conference.Tristen Norman of Getty Images and others spoke about provenance as well.
In our marketing session, we learned from experts like Jared Bauman of 201 Creative and Noelle Kim of Envato about how AI has changed the marketing landscape. AI is causing disruption but also creating new opportunities to leverage human creativity and help creatives do more with less.
That same theme was carried through during sessions about human creativity from speakers on the agency side of the industry.
From Stewart Cohen, Kevin Bassett, DeSean Brown and others, we learned about how AI and other modern tools are helping underrepresented creators or creators on smaller budgets build the things they can imagine but previously would not have been able to make.
Personalization and the Power of Photos
Personalization was another key theme during the conference. Across our sessions, we learned from experts like Elena Piech of ZeroSpace and Randal Cumming of CGI.Backgrounds about how innovative technologies like digital twins, combined with AI and customer information, are helping create truly personalized experiences for customers.
Again, this unlocks new opportunities in our field. Existing content can be customized in myriad ways to meet the requirements of different customers and brands.
Alongside our learning on advanced tech and business topics, we were inspired by the annual “Tales from the Trenches” presentation organized by Jonathan Wells of SIPA USA. Jonathan brought together courageous photojournalists documenting the front lines of war, protests, elections, and more.
For almost an hour, we saw their inspiring work and heard their stories. It was a poignant reminder of why we in the industry do the work that we do, and the core importance of photography and videography to our industry.
DAMs and Legal
Our DAMs panel brought out the practical and extremely important nuances of the DAM world through a lens of sustainability. Jake Athey of Acquia, Misti Vogt of Orange Logic, and other experts presented on the topic.
Of course, no IDMLC is complete without our ever-popular legal topics!
The Legal Committee, as well as outside experts, presented on every aspect of ongoing lawmaking, litigation, decisions regarding artificial intelligence, copyright changes, and the advocacy work that DMLA does throughout the year.
Nancy Wolff of CDAS, Margaret Vincent of Stocksy and other legal experts presented deep updates on these topics.
Join us Next Year!
In addition to bringing the industry together in person in New York, the simultaneous online version of the conference drew a wide variety of attendees from around the globe. Stay tuned as we release recordings from the conference.
Overall, attendees walked away feeling that they had learned an incredible amount about the industry in a short time. We also heard many attendees say how useful it was to connect face-to-face with their colleagues, suppliers, and new entrants to the field.
The 2024 IDMLC was a huge success, and we can’t wait to see everyone again in 2025!