This came up on another thread but I think it deserves its own
https://www.plusregistry.org/
I think this is exactly the sort of thing we need, a central neutral, non-profit registry for our work, and it has some big backers.

I am getting behind it, what does everyone else think?

How much does that suck? Thanks for letting me know, changed the link!

I found this: http://www.useplus.com/aboutplus/news.asp
So it looks like the idea has been around since 2005!

Jeff Sedlik who is in charge of this effort, is a photographer himself.  He apparently started it because of a number of issues, two main ones being a) a desire to make it easier for users to license images (rather than just use them) and b) simplify the whole process of managing licenses by standardizing terms and making licenses machine readable.

BAPLA have endorsed it as a model for similar efforts in the UK.  The last report I read a few weeks ago indicated PLUS has a governing board structured in such a way that no one part of the industry can mount a power grab.  Sounds good to me...

PLUS also has a Registry for photographers (we're signed up), and are now working on the registry for images.  The basic idea is that if a buyer wants to use an image encountered in the wild, a search will lead to that image in the PLUS image database and so to the copyright owner who can license the image.  I expect that will work very well for images already in use, not sure it will be very helpful getting that first license.  One good point about it is that as long as you get your images into the database, no-one will be able to make a reasonable claim they couldn't find the copyright owner, so none of the registered images should ever be orphaned.

If this all comes together - and they have some big companies providing funding - search becomes a key function, and you may find yourself making friends with Google and Getty's PicScout/ImageExchange.  I expect Getty will want a nibble of every license, and don't relish that thought - but it all depends how greedy they are at any moment.

Any web site can prevent Google (or any other search engine) from reading it to build the index at the core of the search function - all it takes is the "nofollow" html in the appropriate position.  That means that a  stock company can prevent the search engines from reading their web site, their content will not go into the index, and therefore will not show up in search results.  The mere fact you submitted an image to a stock site is probably no guarantee a search engine can find it; to be safe, I would upload images into the PLUS registry.

Regards