The IPTC was established in 1965 by group of news organisations with the purpose of establishing common standards for the transfer of high speed news information, including text but also photographs. Since December 2005 CEPIC is an Associate Member at IPTC together with German Member BVPA. As such these two organisations may participate as observers in General Meetings and Committees and may vote in Working Groups.

At the CEPIC annual Congress BIARRITZ in France in June 2006 Michael STEIDL, Managing Director of IPTC, made a presentation on the photo metadata standards maintained by the IPTC, the IIM based “IPTC photo header” and the XLM based “IPTC-Core”. More than 80 of the (around 700) congress attendees heard the presentation “and the following discussion showed a strong interest in the IPTC standards, along with but also strong request for metadata beyond the current set” reports IPTC. At CEPIC it was agreed to collaborate on metadata issues and finally a Working Group was set up at the AGM in July.

“I am really glad the the picture business gets a chance to co-operate with IPTC” comments Staffan TESTE representative of CEPIC at IPTC. “It is important that the picture industry has a chance to influence the way metadata in the future will look like. It is important that the special problems of stock & heritage may be taken care of. The photo metadata comes into a new era in which more and more information is taken from the camera. A working flow must be built up not only for news and print but also for web, mobile telephone and all media using pictures. If the information is provided as early as possible in the working flow, it will become much easier to search for the copyright owner and the information about the picture will never get lost, regardless how the picture is being used.”

Besides this internal photo metadata group, IPTC has also set up a public group for discussion available at the following link : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iptc-photometadata

As recent initiatives from various organisations in the picture industry have shown, metadata is the burning issue for the future of this industry. CEPIC co-ordinates a Technological Committee made up of various experts in the photo industry Europe-wide and its input in the photo metadata working group is its contribution to the debate.

CEPIC, the Co-ordination of European Picture Agencies Press Stock Heritage, was established in Berlin in 1993 as a European economic interest group (E.E.I.G) in accordance with the European Communities Regulation and registered in Paris in 1999. The aim of CEPIC is to be a united voice for the picture library and agency associations of Europe in all matters pertaining to the photographic industry. CEPIC has Observer Status at WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and is Associate Member at I.P.T.C, the International Press Telecommunication Council. CEPIC represents over 1,000 picture sources in Europe with members from seventeen different European countries.
CEPIC is registered in Paris at 13, rue Lafayette 75009 Paris - Registration Nr (SIRET) is 421 723 073 00019.
Offices are located in Berlin, Germany, Lietzenburger-Straße 91, 10719 Berlin (Charlottenburg).