sljoke: The article don't explain the potential of this tool.
Yes it's just an API, but the Connect service is going to be negotiated in may different ways ...
For example: a journal that uses/link a image for an article and pay per view of the article/photo ... or a tshirt site that shows lots of photos in his tshirt and only pay if the client buy the photo.
For me looks like a different licence model where every site as to pay to show/use a photo.