Ad Networks Responsible for Content Piracy?

Start-Up Plans to Make Journalism Pirates Pay Up
New York Times, July 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/technology/start-ups/27attributor.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

You gotta love this new business model being proposed by Attributor: Make the ad networks pay for pirated content! After failing to get enough publishers to pay for the service, Attributor has decided it might be easier to get money out of the ad networks. More power to them. While I can't argue with the fact that ad networks are making money at the expense of publishers, I am bothered by the fact that this business model rewards the sins of the sinners.

Shouldn't the actual culprits -- the sites that are pirating the content -- be held accountable? Not with this model. The story headline is misleading. The pirates are not having to pay anything. In fact, the story suggests that it is perfectly fine for sites to copy content with impunity. Someone has to pay, but surely not the people who stole it in the first place. They did the publisher a favor. It's those money-grubbing search engines and ad networks that are to blame.

I've suggested this strategy to my son, who has a bad habit of collecting speeding tickets. The next time he is caught speeding, he should have the state patrol send the ticket to Chevron. After all, it was Chevron who fueled his car and they are the ones who have the money! My son is a poor college student. He shouldn't have to pay. Screw the oil companies. Screw the ad networks. They made us do it.

The Only Sensible Model for News Publishers: Usage

Leading news publishers met in Chicago last week to hear the business models of the future -- the paths they should take back to profitability. Some of the proceedings have been reported by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard. The problem is that most of what they heard is the same old tired models with new, Web 3.o-sounding names, like Journalism Online, Fair Syndication Consortium, Kachingle, and ViewPass. They all miss the mark by a huge margin. They are all seriously flawed and don't stand a prayer's chance in hell of working for most news publishers.

These models appeal to news publishers on some level because they all tout the old ways of making money: pay walls, subscriptions, user registration, demographic profiling, ad targeting, and, somewhat new, extorting money out of those who have figured out how to make it (namely Google). These are old models for a new paradigm in publishing, rather than a new model for a new paradigm in publishing. In all but a few cases, users are not going to pay to view online news content, period. They are not going to register. They are not going to allow themselves to be tracked and profiled and "behaviorally targeted" with advertisements. There are all kinds of reasons why these models won't work, but allow me to highlight just a few:

1. Pay walls: why would people pay for content on Journalism Online or any publisher site when the same story (or a reasonably good version thereof) can be viewed for free on Google, Yahoo, MSN, CNN, Moreover, Factiva, Lexis-Nexis, and hundreds of other aggregator websites? Are publishers going to stop selling their feeds to these aggregators? I think not.

2. User Registration: I once had to register with NYT.com in order to read their stories (thankfully they did away with that). I registered as a 35 year-old female with two kids and an income of $85,000 per year, using an anonymous email address from Hotmail. I am still getting email offers for Vogue Magazine at that email address, which I keep just for these lame registration sites. There is no system that can verify that the data entered by users is remotely accurate, and if there was, few would register.

3. Demographic Profiling/Ad Targeting: Read #2. Need I say more? Okay, I'll say a little more. Like many users, I have my browser set to reject cookies. On the rare occasion that I accept a cookie in order to view a site or buy something online, the cookies are automatically deleted by another nifty utility that came with my PC. Additionally, some studies suggest that as much as 60% of the data collected by sites and sold to advertisers to justify ad rates is grossly inaccurate.

4. Making Google and the other Ad Networks Pay a "fair compensation" toll: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good luck with that. (By the way, there are ways that Google and the other search engines will pay publishers for the pages they index and cache, but this is not it. I'll save that nugget for another post).

There are LOTS more reasons why none of the models proposed thus far will work for most news publishers. The underlying reason is because people do not "view" the news like they use to, nor do they "consume" the news like they use to. So it follows that news publishers can not monetize like they use to. None of the old models apply, no matter how they are made to look like new models. I propose the only sensible model is "usage," for want of a better, cooler, Web 3.0-sounding term.

I suggest that the model for how content will be monetized on the web has been turned on its head. It's an upside down world of news publishing in the digital age. What do I mean by that? In the good ole days, most of the money was made by newspapers from subscription, or from CPM advertising. It was an all-or-none proposition. A little money was made on actual "usage," like when someone bought a reprint, a photo, or a permission. People paid for a newspaper whether they read all the articles or not. It was worth it to get the business section, or sports section, or whatever we were interested in. Occasionally, we would buy a poster of the front page, or a plaque version of a wedding announcement. Publishers made a little money on "uses." The reverse is now true.

Today, people don't want to buy a newspaper to get just the sports section. They can get JUST the sports stories they want by doing a search or visiting any number of free sites that publish sports news and only sports news. They subscribe to Google Alerts or Clip&Copy to get just the articles they want. They will "pay" for what they use, but not for the privilege of seeing a bunch of headlines and stories they won't read. In the old model, publishers got paid for everything. In the new model, publishers will get paid for what people use (or "consume," if you like that term better). With this model, a "view" is NOT a use. People won't pay to view a headline or a story, anymore than an iTunes user will pay to sample a song. Users will pay to "take" an article, just like an iTunes user will pay to "take" a song. And no, this is not a pay-per-view model either.

The usage model concedes that all news stories are free -- to look at. View them to your heart's content. News is a commodity. If a publisher wants you to pay before you can view a story, get a similar one from another source that is happy to supply it free-of-charge, free-of-registration, free of stupid Kachingle badges or ViewPasses. Odds are you will find that same story, or ones very similar, on lots of aggregator sites. Just Google it. However, the second you click to email, print, save, post, download, share, or otherwise "use" the story (and millions of people do this every day), Bingo! That's money in the bank for the publisher. The cash register rings when content is used and shared, not because of the mere fact that it has been published.

This news usage monetization model should not be a huge leap for publishers. In some respects it mirrors the evolution of the advertising model. In the old days, advertisers paid for placement on an all-or-nothing basis. They paid on a CPM basis, not really knowing how effective their ads were. The old adage was, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half." Google changed all that. Advertising became "actionable." Advertisers pay for click ads because they deliver better, more accountable results. The same is true for content. Publishers can make money from content that is "actionable."

Publishers have learned that they can make more money from click ads (actionable) then they can make from old fashion impression ads. In fact, advertisers won't pay them as much for old fashion impression ads as they will pay them for new-age click ads. The same is true for content. Users won't pay to view articles, but they will pay -- or advertisers will pay -- when users email, print, post, or otherwise "use" articles. In fact, publishers can make lots more money from usage than they can make from articles that are merely viewed. Unfortunately, they are still giving away uses and trying to make money on views. Page views have been reduced to remnant CPM ad rates. Publishers have things backward. They are trying to make money on views no one cares about, and they give away the uses that their audience values the most.

Old ad model -- CPM. (not actionable)
New ad model -- Pay-per-Click, Pay-per-Call and Pay-per-Sale. (actionable)

Old content model -- all or nothing subscription and pay-per-view. (not actionable)
New content model -- ad-supported usage and pay-per-usage. (actionable)

How publishers make money from advertising has forever changed. It's a new advertising paradigm. The same is true for how money is made from the content itself. It's an upside-down model. Some money in views (remnant advertising), lots of money in usage (targeted contextual advertising and paid usage). How the "usage" model works exactly and what publishers need to do to implement it, has been covered in other posts and white papers published on iCopyright.com. I won't belabor it here.

Long live the news and news publishers -- so long as the news is useful (not just viewable).

Copyright is a Business Model

Lots more debate this week about what publishers (particularly newspapers) need to do to save themselves from oblivion. Here are some of the headlines from well respected sources:

Pay Walls Alone Won’t Save Newspapers
New York Times Considers Two Plans to Charge for Content on the Web
There We Go Again. No, Micropayments Won’t “Save Journalism”
Social Publishing Site Scribd Adds E-Commerce; 80 Percent Revenues To Publishers
What would Google do about newspapers?
News Corp Studies Web Content Platforms

The industry continues to look for a "magic" solution, when the "practical" solution is already on their content: their copyright notice (and by extension their article tools). They just haven't turned it on. The copyright notice is a cash register that goes wherever the content goes, without creating barriers to the free-flow of content. It can ring up sales of the content each time it is viewed, emailed, printed, posted, republished, or otherwise used or shared -- online or offline -- whether it is being used for free or for a fee. It also virtually eliminates piracy (unauthorized scraping, copying and posting).

Copyright is not sexy, but it is the best business model for content that has ever been created and will ever be created. It's the thing that both protects content and monetizes it. Publishers are using an old 20th century version of copyright -- an inert symbol that says nothing and does nothing. They just need to upgrade it. Make way for copyright 2.1 -- a version for the 21st century. Copyright is a cash register. Plug it in! Anyone that wants to use the content deposits a few cents or dollars, or gets it for free for other consideration, depending upon the price set by the owner (as with all goods and services.) Anyone who tries to take it without paying gets their fingers slammed in the cash register door.

More on copyright as a business model can be found in these two papers:
A Vision for Copyright in the 21st Century
iCopyright Article Tools: Maximizing Revenue, Minimizing Piracy

A Vision for Copyright in the 21st Century

No matter where you stand on copyright, you probably agree that it’s a confusing and contentious issue. Few people understand copyright and even fewer agree on how strongly it should be applied or enforced in the digital age. This paper offers a clear and sensible vision for copyright in the 21st century. It proposes and demonstrates three features that should be incorporated into each and every work that is copyrighted: Inform, Enable, and Authenticate. These three features make copyright work for all stakeholders in the digital content ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to rally content creators, content distributors, and content consumers – along with the industry associations that represent them -- to embrace this vision and to help implement it. The time has come for a unified vision.

Please review the paper and weigh in with your comments.

Associated Press Targets Internet Aggregators

Good story on NPR about AP's campaign to crack down on unauthorized uses of their content. Click on the "Listen Now" link to hear the interview with Jane Seagrave. She does an excellent job of articulating the problem and how AP is starting to address it, without being heavy-handed.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103420598

NPR does a nice job of providing historical perspective. The threats posed by content piracy were faced by AP and other major publishers with every technological advance -- the teletype, radio, television, etc. At each stage the problem was addressed and publishers continued to flourish. The same will happen with the current crisis. The Internet is the best thing (and worse thing) to happen to publishers since the press was invented. How they collectively deal with the current threat will determine their fortunes.

iCopyright has been working on this issue for the better part of 10 years. We are only surprised that it took this long for the problem to come to a head and for the major publishers to proactively step-up to address it.

Here we are!

I have seen the content pirate and he is us

At the risk of being branded a plagiarist, allow me to paraphrase the comic strip character Pogo, who said, "I have seen the enemy and he is us." In the heated battle that is going on today between news publishers, search engines and bloggers over the use (or misuse) of publisher content, let me say that, "I have seen the content pirate and he is us!"

Dean Singleton, chairman of the AP board and CEO of MediaNews Group, recently said, “I think our industry has been very timid about protecting our content, probably because we've done so well in the past few years that we didn't recognize that misappropriation is as serious an issue as it is. As we're now relooking at business models, it's become clear that we must protect the rights of our content. ... We perhaps have been timid about enforcing [those rights]. No more. We own the content but we've let those who spend very little, if any, get the most advantage from it.”

Mr. Singleton was expressing the frustration felt by many publishers (some of them our clients) who believe they create all the content, but Google and other aggregators, including millions of bloggers, reap most of the benefits. There's some truth to that, but I don't think Google or the blogosphere are the ultimate enemy. I think the publishing industry has a solid legal argument that the headlines and "snippets" used by search engines and blogs are NOT covered by fair use. If you are in the business of supplying headlines and snippets and that is what others are copying and monetizing at your expense, then copyright applies. It certainly applies if millions of people can click the "Cached" link that appears next to the snippet to read the full article without ever having to visit the publisher's site. If you are a photographer and someone takes parts of your photos, i.e., snippets, and sells them to others, or monetizes them with ads, or creates derivative works with them, you will likely insist that your copyrights have been infringed. If they are taking the entire photo, then you will likely rush to the court house because that's a slam dunk case of infringement.

That said, the "snippet" battle with Google is a red herring that masks the larger problem of content piracy and why publishers are failing to monetize their works. I truly believe that the snippet battle will be resolved amicably between the publishers and the search engines. They need each other. The digital content ecosystem can not thrive without good content and easy ways to find that content. Ken Doctor wrote an excellent piece for PaidContent.org that suggests a possible resolution: A Solution To The Newspaper Industry’s Battle With Google

The bigger problem, in my view, is the dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about and no one, except iCopyright (pat on back), is trying to address. The vast majority of content that is pirated and used for commercial purposes -- with no attribution, links, or compensation to the publisher -- is perpetrated by millions of people everyday in the performance of their jobs.

Most people would not accept stolen goods from a friend. Most employers would not buy software and load it on multiple computers, unless they had a site license to do so. But that is exactly what is going on with publisher content. I get two or three emails a day from well meaning colleaques containing full articles that were cut-and-pasted from sites like CNN and The New York Times. I see full articles posted on blogs and company web sites that I know were shamelessly "borrowed" from the creators. When asked, most will innocently say that the content was passed to them by someone else and they did not think to ask if it was okay to copy it, email it, or post it. The vast majority of pirated content that is "consumed" for commercial purposes is not coming from the search engines or even scraped from publisher websites. It is coming from people who got it from other people, who got it from who knows where.

Outsell, Inc. wrote a research report several years ago entitled, The Copyright Pandemic. Their research estimated 56 billion documents (articles, photos) circulated each year without permission, much of it for commercial purposes. I'll bet publishers wished they had $1 for every one of those copied and shared documents. Publishers can look at Google as the source of their failing empires, but it is "us" that is causing their downfall. What's the solution? Glad you asked!

The solution is a simple matter of tagging each and every piece of content with a unique identifier that states what rights the sender or poster has. The tag is part of the publisher's copyright notice which accompanies each piece of content, whether an article, image, video, or music file. Whenever anyone hands me a copy of an article, or emails me an article, or my webmaster posts an article on our website, the first thing I do is look at the copyright notice and tag to verify that they have the rights to be using it and sharing it with me. If there is no copyright notice attached and no proof-of-license to make copies, post, or email, I delete it. I wouldn't drive a car without a valid license plate. Why would I put my company and my reputation at risk by using copyrighted content without the owner's expressed permission? The enemy is us and we would not be pirates if everyone could see that we were. Publishers and creators could again enjoy the fruits of their labor.

To learn more about this "License Verification Tag" download this 2-page overview:
The iCopyright Platform: A Virtuous Circle for Content Monetization

~Mike O'Donnell
mike@icopyright.com

Article Tools Whitepaper

Just published, this paper presents the findings of a recent user survey and independent usability testing of article tools. This paper will change the way you think about the Print Email Save Post Share tools used on thousands of news and information websites.

Article tools and the copyright notice can work in concert to greatly improve the usability of content and increase publisher revenue, while reducing piracy of copyrighted content. Most publishers are missing the boat. Article tools give readers the green light to do something with content besides read it. So does the copyright notice if it is implemented as an interactive link and not as static text.

http://info.icopyright.com/article-tools-whitepaper.asp

Let's Invent iTunes for News: New York Times, January 12, 2009

David Carr's article, "Let's Invent an iTune for News," New York Times, January 11, 2009, made my year -- and it's only January 12th! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/business/media/12carr.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

It is refreshing to finally hear someone in the media, who writes about the media, making sense about the value of news content and the sea change that is required to preserve that value. Newspapers like the New York Times not only produce high value content, they are essential to a free and educated society. There is no way that tweets, blogs and stripped-down news aggregators could ever fill the gap. What news would they aggregate if the respected news sources disappeared? We would be a far poorer society without the likes of the New York Times and other metro dailies.

News articles are as valuable to a newspaper as songs are to an album. But unlike songs that one can buy through iTunes and similar services, newspapers have not organized themselves to sell articles. In fact, they go out of their way to give articles away. Newspapers think they are in the newspaper business just like music labels thought they were in the album business. In reality, newspapers are in the article business.

Just about every major online newspaper actively promotes free use and free distribution of articles, with no strings. It could be argued that the major daily newspapers actually created the cut-and-paste culture. Newspapers invented the thing that is killing them. It was the news industry that gave us the Print, Email, Save, and Share links on every article. These links tell readers, "Take our content, do what you want with it, it's free!" iCopyright has conducted usability studies of online news sites and the use of these links. We know this to be a fact.

Newspapers are to articles what P2P networks are to songs -- a mechanism to freely take, use and redistribute content as one sees fit. But unlike the songs on P2P networks, news articles can be taken with the implicit permission of the owners. To make matters worse, newspapers like the New York Times have helped to create a culture of "free use entitlement" that has negatively impacted B2B publishers, who were not so keen on letting users copy their content for free. We hear it all the time from users. "The New York Times lets me take their content. You should be grateful that I have taken and posted your content. Why are you asking me to pay for it?"

What is a good business model? Carr suggests iTunes for news. iTunes for news already exists! The publishers and editors just don't use it. The first thing that needs to happen is for the major news providers to stop thinking that their content has no value other than for advertiser-supported first publishing. A media company like The New York Times has the clout to lead the way to a viable and sustainable model.

The iTunes model has to be tweaked for news content. Users buy songs from iTunes because they have already heard the song and they want to play it over-and-over. Very few users are going to pay to read an article with no way of knowing if it is a good article, or one that interests them, anymore than a user is going to buy a song they have not heard. However, once the user has read the article (supported by first-use advertisement), the iTunes model kicks in to allow them to easily print, email, save, share, post, and republish for commercial (work) purposes, for a fee. The publishing industry would earn billions of dollars in new revenue with this model. As with music, the money is in the reuse of news, not the first use (view).

Keep preaching, David. God knows the newspaper industry needs a credible prophet right now.

iCopyright Introduces Discovery

We are please to announce the latest addition to the iCopyright platform. It is called Discovery. Publishers can use it to monitor how their content is being used on the web and to detect plagiarism and infringement. Discovery functions as a business development tool, license verification tool, and infringement detection and redress management tool.

We will be posting some case studies soon.

Press Release: http://info.icopyright.com/news_091608_discovery.asp

Press Coverage:

Information Today: http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/wndReader.asp?ArticleId=50845

EContent Magazine: http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/News/News-Item/iCopyright-Introduces-Discovery-50810.htm

Folio Magazine: http://www.foliomag.com/2008/publishers-try-online-tool-detecting-plagiarism-copyright-infringement

Seattle Times: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/brierdudley/2008/09/16/dont_steal_that_copy_seattles.html

Plagiarism Today: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2008/09/16/icopyright-announces-content-tracking-tool/

Journalism.co.uk: http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2008/09/11/siia-icopyright-previews-discovery-copyright-tracking-tool/

iCopyright "Excerpt" License

We recently received a number of inquiries regarding the excerpt license that is available on articles from publishers using iCopyright. Some bloggers in particular have the impression that iCopyright is trying to profit from selling excerpts that the bloggers believe should be covered under Fair Use. This is not the case! By way of background, the Excerpt License was developed at the request of users who wished to excerpt significant portions of an article for reprinting, posting and use in PowerPoint presentations. These users did not want to include parts of the article that mentioned their competitors, or were otherwise irrelevant for their purposes.

It is also important to note that iCopyright does not choose the services, the terms, or the prices of any of the licenses that its system processes for publishers. If publishers decide to offer an Excerpt License, they choose the terms and prices of that license. They own the content, not iCopyright. In the same way that PayPal has no control over the value or terms of an item that is purchased through its gateway, iCopyright has no control over the value and terms of a piece of content licensed through its gateway.

It is a fundamental principle of iCopyright to be agnostic with respect to the content our service is used on and the rules the owner has associated with the reuse of that content. iCopyright is a technology. It does not set copyright guidelines. It does not enforce copyright. It simply makes it possible for people to easily use and share content under the rules set up by the owners.

SIIA Clips Clipping Services

The Software & Information Industry recently sent the following letter to press clippings and media monitoring services, putting them on notice that their services may be infringing the copyrights of their members:

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and its publishing members have become aware of the significant and rampant piracy by some companies providing “clipping” or “media monitoring” services that provide clients access to news articles or other copyrighted information, often based on specific subject requirements designated by the client (hereafter referred to as “media monitoring services”). At the urging of our publishing members, SIIA has been asked to conduct an education and enforcement initiative focused on ensuring that media monitoring services understand their obligations under the copyright law and abide by that law.

This letter represents the first step in this initiative. It is being sent to you and all other companies known to offer media monitoring services in the United States, and many abroad. Its primary purpose is to alert you to the steps you need to take to comply with copyright law. The fact that this letter was sent to you does not mean that your company is being targeted. This is not a cease and desist letter. It is our vehicle for educating the “media monitoring service” industry on copyright law as it pertains to this type of activity and alerting them to forthcoming enforcement actions by SIIA against those who choose not to comply with the law.

Accordingly, if your company is compliant with copyright law and has obtained the proper licenses from the relevant copyright owners or their agents, it has nothing to worry about and does not need to fear further action by SIIA. If, however, your company is not complying with the law or you are uncertain whether your company is complying consider this letter both: (1) an opportunity to review your practices further to understand what your company needs to do to become copyright compliant, and (2) formal notice that the publishing industry is concerned about, and focused on, infringements taking place in the media monitoring industry and, in the near future, will be taking steps to enforce their rights against those that fail to adequately heed this warning.

Copyright law dictates the way that business articles can be copied and distributed. Under the copyright laws of all countries, text materials including magazines, newspapers, books and journals are copyright protected, even if published on the “open web.” These laws also give the owner-publisher the right to control the copying and distribution of those copyright-protected materials. Accordingly, in most cases, permission from the copyright holder is necessary before a work can be lawfully copied and/or distributed. Because media monitoring services copy and distribute materials to a wide audience, for commercial use, they need a license from the copyright owner-publisher.

The consequences of copyright infringement can be severe, with fines reaching into six figures. For instance, the remedies under the U.S. Copyright Act that are available to publishers include statutory damages up to $150,000 per violation for willful violations and $30,000 per violation for non-willful violations, plus attorneys’ fees. Title 17 U.S.C. §§ 502-505. Courts have had little difficulty imposing these substantial fines on those who fail to abide by the copyright law. For example, see Lowry’s Report v. Legg Mason, 302 F.Supp.2d 455 (D. Md. 2004) or Graham v. Haughey, et al., No. 05-612 (E.D. Penn., April 2, 2008), in which the courts ordered the defendants to pay close to $20 million each for internal copying of copyrighted content.

In addition to potential liability for copyright infringement, media monitoring services also run the risk of violating other federal and state laws, such as trademark and unfair competition laws and hot news misappropriation laws.

The publishers of text content that SIIA represents are more interested in making sure that you know that there are convenient ways to comply, than they are interested in pursuing litigation against infringers.

For many organizations, the most convenient way to request permission to copy and distribute text materials is through the publisher of the content. For example, you can often obtain permission from the publisher directly from the publication’s website or by contacting the publisher directly. (In certain circumstances, you can also look for point-of content licensing features on individual online articles, such as Copyright Clearance Center’s Rightslink at www.rightslink.copyright.com or iCopyright at www.icopyright.com.)

Alternatively, to secure permissions from multiple copyright holders in one place, you may prefer to use the clearinghouse services of Copyright Clearance Center, available at www.copyright.com, or iCopyright at www.icopyright.com.

A third alternative is to alter your business model by sending your clients links to the original article, rather than making copies and sending them to your clients. Sending links to the articles, as opposed to the articles themselves, typically does not implicate the reproduction or distribution rights under the copyright law and therefore you do not need a license to do it.

We encourage you and your company to: (1) get further educated on the requirements of copyright law; (2) to investigate your company’s internal business practices; and (3) correct any areas of noncompliance with the copyright law. Additional information on the copyright law and the licensing of copyrighted works is also available at SIIA’s website, at www.siia.net, and the U.S. Copyright office, at www.copyright.gov, or by taking SIIA’s Certified Content Rights Manager course (http://www.siia.net/piracy/seminars.asp#ccrm).

Ultimately SIIA and its publishing members are interested in helping your business succeed and enabling your company to copy and distribute copyrighted materials lawfully. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this letter or need assistance with your compliance efforts.

Sincerely,

Keith Kupferschmid
Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement
Software & Information Industry Association

iCopyright for Creators!!!

Are you an artist? Photographer? Writer? Then if you have heard of iCopyright for Creators, you're probably already signed up. If you haven't heard of it, it may be just what you're looking for!

In this day and age, it's quite startling how many people copy and paste another's work. That could be happening to your work! You worked hard on it, you created it, it's yours, so you should get the benefits of it! With iCopyright for Creators, your work will be tagged online. This will allow you to assign a variety of different licensing options to your work. You can allow free uses such as a limited amount of free printings, or paid licenses such as purchased copies, or reprint rights or other services such as contacting you, the artist. All of these options are controlled by you. Allow some or all, it's your choice. You get complete control of options and pricing of your licenses. More importantly, the tag will allow the copyright information to be attached to the work letting customers know who owns the copyright - namely you!

iCopyright for Creators is free so sign up at http://creators.icopyright.com.

Your work should speak for itself - so let it!

Cut, Copy, Paste Kills Copyright (for now)

I am often asked by publishers, "Who is iCopyright's biggest competitor?" The answer is not usually obvious and takes them by surprise: "Cut, Copy and Paste!" It has 90% of the available market. That's right. The most generous estimates are that less than 10% of the content that is emailed, copied, posted, republished, or otherwise repurposed for commercial and educational purposes (as opposed to personal use), is done so with a valid license. Contrary to what content owners think, iCopyright does not compete with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), Mochilla, Voxant, Macrovision, Attributor, or any of the other content licensing or syndication solutions on the market. Collectively, these solutions have less than 10% of the market...mere scraps.

iCopyright competes against a culture that tolerates (and even encourages) people to take other people's content with impunity. One might ask, "How can iCopyright possibly compete with that?" That's a longer and more complicated answer, best saved for another blog.

Here's a hint: In the 1980's and early 1990's, 80% of all software was copied and distributed freely without a license, in violation of the publisher's copyrights. Today, only about 10% of software is pirated -- mostly in countries with weak copyright education and enforcement. The vast majority of software is legally licensed. The tide did turn for software and will eventually do so for digital content. Cut, Copy, Paste may be killing copyright today, but in the long run, copyright will prevail. iCopyright is helping to lead the way.

iCopyright Provides Article Tools for Associated Press and its Members

We are pleased to report that iCopyright has entered into a digital content copyright protection and permission agreement with The Associated Press, providing online users of AP content with a Web-based method to license and share AP stories and photos for a variety of commercial and educational uses. AP will display iCopyright links at the top and bottom of every AP-hosted story so users can easily use, share and license content instantly. AP will encourage members/subscribers to add the iCopyright tags to the AP stories they publish on their own websites. AP shares the advertsing, reprint and licensing revenue with the member.

Bruce Glover, AP Deputy Director of Business Development: "This online content reuse arrangement opens up a new source of revenue from rights, permissions and reprints of AP content while enhancing copyright protection and licensing. iCopyright makes it easier to monitor copyright compliance and to identify pirated and misappropriated stories."

We could not be more pleased and honored to be named the exclusive licensing agent for AP’s hosted content. Online users will be able to click the Email Print Post Save License links at the top of AP stories to easily use and share the stories, while respecting AP's copyrights. By encouraging all of its members to also add the iCopyright tags, AP is helping to set a standard that the entire digital content industry can emulate.

What does it mean to websites that publish AP stories and photos each day?

Toby Leith, Boston Globe Content Licensing Manager: "We are very pleased to be one of the first news organizations already using iCopyright services to leverage this exciting development. For years, our customers have sought to create reprints based on AP content but with the Globe's logos and masthead for local use. Now, through iCopyright, they have a variety of service options to do just that."

Jack Lail, Managing Editor/Multimedia for The Knoxville News Sentinel: “iCopyright is a hassle-free way of handling reprints. The customer gets instantaneous fulfillment. Everybody wins.”

If you have any questions about how this works or what it means to those who publish and read AP stories, please shoot us an email at publishers@icopyright.com.

Nexpo and EContent April 12-15

Executives from iCopyright will be attending the Nexpo show in Washington D.C. and the EContent Show in Scottsdale, AZ on April 12-15, 2008. If you plan to attend either of these conferences and want to touch base, please drop us a note to arrange a meeting. publishers@icopyright.com.

For the Record: PARS Doesn't "Get It"

iCopyright is proud to have strong partnerships with a number of leading reprint companies, including FosteReprints, Wrights Reprints, The Reprint Licensing Centre, and Red Rover. We operate an "open platform" that these reprint companies can use to better serve their publisher clients and the companies that buy reprints. Many publishers that manage reprints internally also use iCopyright to generate more reprint sales. In fact, just about every reprint company and every publisher reprint department that has taken the time to test iCopyright, has adopted it. We are happy to supply references to anyone who wants them.

We appreciate that not every reprint company wants to partner with iCopyright. What we don't appreciate are false or misleading reasons a reprint company gives a publisher client for not wanting to partner with iCopyright. We believe they have a responsibility to their clients to be honest about the pros and cons. On that note, we wish to set the record straight with one such reprint company.

We recently came into possession of a memo written by Steve Mussman of PARS (Publisher Ancillary Revenue Services) to one of his publisher clients, regarding iCopyright. The memo contained so many false and misleading statements, it was obvious to us that PARS does not understand the iCopyright technology and the role it plays for reprint companies and publishers. Either that, or Mr. Mussman has some personal grudge to bare. We take great pride in iCopyright, so we think it is only appropriate that we set the record straight.

Mussman: iCopyright has "failed to gain significant traction in the marketplace."

The truth is that iCopyright has been more widely deployed by publishers than any other solution and certainly has far more publication clients than does PARS.

Mussman: "...the most prevalent comment about the performance of [iCopyright] is the COMPLETE LACK OF REVENUE GENERATION!"

The truth is that iCopyright is not used exclusively by publishers to generate revenue. It is used to communicate and preserve the publisher's rights, provide for the "free use" of the publisher's content, generate valuable data on how the publisher's content is being used and by whom, among many other purposes. Mr. Mussman makes this statement as if every one of his clients generates a lot of revenue. The fact is they do not. PARS can not control any more than iCopyright can whether the content has "resale" value or whether anyone wants to buy it.

Mussman: "Several publishers have even gone so far as to remove the option from their website(s) because the administrative effort was not being offset by the revenue it was generating."

The truth is that iCopyright requires no administrative effort. Once the publisher adds the iCopyright tags to their CMS, the automated system does the work -- including sending leads for reprints to the publisher's reprint company or internal staff. While many publishers choose to use their iCopyright Console to modify prices, add new licensing services, run reports and the like, there is no requirement to do so. While it is true that a few publishers have ceased using iCopyright, the number is no doubt far less than the number of publishers who once used PARS, but now use another reprint company or handle reprints internally.

Mussman: "It is obvious to us that both systems [he is speaking of iCopyright and Rightslink] are trying to garner (aggregate) as much content as possible for their own enrichment."

The truth is that iCopyright takes a far less percentage for its services than does PARS. The value iCopyright provides is indisputable, which is why so many publishers and reprint companies use it. Mr. Mussman makes this statement as if he is not in business to "enrich" himself.

Mussman: "Our point was that the amount of permission requests received would almost certainly not increase due to the incorporation of [iCopyright]."

The truth is that most publishers who have implemented iCopyright have experienced a significant increase in the number of permission requests. The reason is simple: permissions are available instantly at the user's first point of contact with the article. The user just has to click to buy an instant license or to order reprints. To get reprints from PARS, a user must wait for someone from PARS to call. That simply does not scale. In fact, there is no way for PARS to know who to call. They don't know who is reading an article at any one moment and might be interested in buying it. iCopyright knows that and can immediately engage the reader and facilitate a reprint order.

Mussman: "We have also discovered first hand that by incorporating such a service that many publishers have in-fact seen adverse effects on the amount of leads and revenue generated by their CORE reprint program(s)."

This is a patently false statement and shows how ignorant Mr. Mussman is about the role that iCopyright plays. Mr. Mussman is under the mistaken belief that every person who might be interested in using the article, wants custom reprints and has several thousand dollars to spend. There are all kinds of things that people want to do with a piece besides reprint it. In fact, iCopyright offers 20 different types of licenses. The reprint companies that iCopyright works with will testify that iCopyright has generated reprint leads for them that they would not have received otherwise, and does provide a mechanism for people who initially express interest in purchasing a lower-priced license to upgrade to custom reprints.

Mussman: "We have been and continue to be concerned that these programs offer users a significantly lower priced alternative upfront!"

On that score, Mr. Mussman has it exactly right. iCopyright does indeed offer users lower priced alternatives for the reuse of the publisher's content. Mr Mussman simply fails to understand that the vast majority of these people are not in the market for expensive reprints to begin with. Best that the publisher offers them affordable options to generate some revenue, rather than no revenue, and discourages these people from cutting and pasting the content without permission -- which is what many do when no alternatives are available.

Mussman: "Many times when a user requests a product or service they do so without knowing the full range of options available to them and therefore tend to choose the least expensive alternative."

The truth is that iCopyright is the ONLY system that offers users a full range of options -- over 20 instant licensing and custom licensing services. PARS offers a limited set of services, which are much more expensive, and typically require days if not weeks for the user to receive.

Mussman: "Our staff is trained to ask probing questions to determine the user’s true needs along with the size and scope of their budgets. This probing usually results in up-sell opportunities and/or cross sell opportunities that cannot be accomplished online by an automated system. "

Wrong again, Mr. Mussman. iCopyright is the only system that offers LIVE SUPPORT on every article. Users can chat with a licensing agent as they are reading the article to discuss their needs and their budget and be directed to the right service. If a user wants to speak with PARS, they first must find the phone number (unlike iCopyright, it is not posted on every article) and make a call.


iCopyright is a transparent system for automated permissions and reprint sales. We conduct our business the same way -- transparently and honestly. We trust PARS will do the same. We have even recommended PARS to publishers who were looking to hire a reprint company. We don't expect the same courtesy, but we do expect them not to misrepresent the facts.

Mike O'Donnell
Chief Executive Officer

Best Practices for Optimizing Reprint and Licensing Revenue

The following is a synopsis of the best practices tips provided by iCopyright, as published in Publishing Executive Magazine. These five tips help publishers to preserve their rights and maximize revenues from their content. See all 13 tips as published in pubexec.com.

1. Licensing Should Be Instant
Every article should be available for instant licensing. If there is no mechanism, human nature being what it is, users will simply cut, copy and paste the content. Directing users to call, fax, or fill-out some generic form for rights and permissions does not work. The mechanism to license needs to be present at the user's point of contact with the content. If the mechanism is present, most users will do the right thing and use it.

Publishing content with no mechanism to license it instantly is like having a store with no cash register and no way to accept payment.

2. The Content Should Be Stamped with a Compliance Verification ID and Downloadable Immediately
A digital license should be obtainable within one minute. The licensed content should be downloadable by the licensee, along with the proof of license, upon completing the transaction. Users won't wait days or weeks to obtain the licensed content, with the exception of reprints (which still takes too long in today's world). Most people need it right away and are "hot" to buy upon reading the piece. Don't expect them to call or suffer a long purchase or permissions waiting period. They will either "take it" without permission or find a similar piece for reuse from another publisher.

3. Free Uses Should Link to Paid Uses, Convey the Publisher's Copyright
Free uses drive sales of paid uses. Publishers should offer a limited number of free uses, such as the ability to email the article, print the article, or save the article for free, in limited quantities and accompanied by ads. If users want more quantities, with no ads, they should be able to "upgrade" to paid licenses. Many publishers include a link to email, print, and save articles, but fail to communicate their copyrights and limits to the reuse. They unknowingly grant users an implied license to do whatever they want with the content. If publishers include these links, they should expressly communicate their copyrights. They should state a limit, such as no more than 10 emails or 10 copies. They should cross-link users to paid uses for additional quantities.

4. Licensing Options Should Suit a Variety of Purposes and Budgets
The more reuse options a user has, the higher the probability that the user will buy. People like to have choices. Publishers should offer a wide variety of reuse options, clearly categorized to suite a variety of budgets. Not every user has the budget to afford $5,000 custom color reprints, but many will pay $50 to $500 for black and white photocopies.

5. Every License Should Offer Recipients Additional Licenses
Every license granted (sold) should empower hyperdistribution and additional sales. That means that every article sold should give the recipients the ability to purchase their own licenses to use the content. For example, if a publisher sells an online user the rights to make 50 copies, the copies should include a copyright notation and link that allows the 50 people who get the copies to purchase rights of their own. A licensee (customer) becomes a marketer and reseller of the publisher's content.

Another good example is a license to republish the article on a company web site or social networking site such as Facebook. The article may be seen by thousands of other people who never would have seen it on the publisher's web site. The article includes the publisher's brand and links back to the publisher's website, attracting new visitors, new subscribers and new licensees for the publisher.

Kill Copyright, Commoditize Content

I recently had a heated debate about copyright with a college student. Actually, it wasn't much of a debate. He yelled, I listened. In dramatic fashion he argued that anti-piracy advocates were "corporate Nazis" and existed to enrich themselves at the expense of artists and society in general. He said that he and his friends felt it was their "God-given right" to use, copy and distribute files for free using bit Torrent and other file-sharing programs, or to simply cut-and-paste the content.

I asked him if he and his friends distinguished at all between the types of files, i.e., news, music, movies, photos, that they copied and shared for free, versus those in which they might pay for or use accompanied by advertisements. He said no, "a digital file is a digital file," no matter what format it was in or what type of content it was. So far as ads were concerned, he said they were a nuisance and easily by-passed. He cited Tivo and pop-up blockers as examples. I asked him if he felt it was important to give the artist attribution for the work, or perhaps a link to the artist's website, when copying the works. He said no. "Giving it to others is doing the artist a favor."

I then posed the question, "If a digital file is a digital file and it does not matter to you and your friends what the content is or who created it, or how to learn more about the artist, or how the artist might get paid in order to continuing creating, then you are saying that all content is a commodity? "Yes!" he declared with victory, "The Internet makes all content a commodity!"

Next year he plans to study economics and marketing. I look forward to continuing the debate with him after he learns that the worst fate that can befall a product is to become a commodity.

Copyright Revolution

iCopyright to present at SALT - Society for Applied Learning Technology. Friday, February 22, 2008, Orlando, Florida. Conference details at: http://www.salt.org/fl/orlandoP.asp

Session Description:

Almost all works of authorship, whether for teaching, news or entertainment, are protected by copyright. Authors signify their ownership of the material and what rights they reserve, if any, by applying the copyright symbol. The copyright symbol is a public notice of ownership. The problem is that the copyright notice is not actionable. It does not communicate whether the author is truly the rights holder. It does not communicate anything about the author or what other works s/he has authored. The copyright notice does not allow people who see the works to obtain permission to use them, or to contact the author about using the work for teaching purposes or commercial purposes.

Until recently, the principles of copyright— and how it is applied — had not changed since it was invented in the 1600’s. Modern copyright systems like Creative Commons, iCopyright and CCC Rightslink, have tried to address copyright shortcomings and to advance the state-of-the-art. However, these advances have been an evolution in copyright, not a revolution. This session will propose a revolution in copyright, particularly as it applies to individual rights holders and the works they create for learning and knowledge awareness.

iCopyright in the U.K.

Mike O'Donnell, iCopyright's CEO, will be in London the week of February 4, 2008. We look forward to welcoming several B2B and B2C publishers who are currently implementing iCopyright for their online users. If you are a publisher or creator located in the UK and want to learn more about iCopyright, please drop Mike a note at mike@iCopyright.com.