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Mike ODonnell
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2 months ago
in Do Article Tools Promote Copyright Infringement? on Plagiarism Today
Jonathan, it's good to see you expanding the dialogue on this issue. I think you start off asking the wrong question, but ultimately reach the right conclusion.
There is no question that article tools promote infringement. All you have to do is view the videos of the test participants as they use article tools and hear their responses to questions posed by the interviewer, to conclude that they do. All you have to do is see the large number of sites that have posted articles using the publisher's 'Print-Friendly' tool -- and are running ads on those articles with no links back to the publisher -- to see that the print tool is used to cross the line between personal use and commercial use.
The question that needs to be asked is, "Should article tools be modified to minimize infringement and increase traffic and revenue for publishers?" You seem to reach the conclusion that the answer is yes. That is the conclusion reached by our study.
You say, "standard article tools as a means of protecting content or limiting use is a poor choice." You also say, "it makes sense to apply them and channel that energy through a system you have some control over." Our study concluded that article tools are a GREAT way to minimize piracy (protect content) and ENABLE personal uses and commercial uses in a way that gives publishers more control. Sure, we think iCopyright's article tools accomplish that, but publishers can take steps on their own to correct the flaws.
The Big Picture is what publishers should do to change the way their article tools are currently implemented. Article Tools have caused publishers to become schizophrenic. They "tell" readers, "please take our content, use it, share it." Then when users do so, publishers and sites like yours (Plagiarism Today) tell them its bad and they should stop "taking" content. Publishers have caused the very problem they feel victimized by. Article Tools need to be put into context for users and strike the right balance between sharing and taking; and between personal uses and commercial uses. Most users do not know the difference.
Another small nit, but an important nuance, you say our study takes issue with the "share" link that lets users Digg content or post headlines on other social networking sites. Our study specifically excludes the "share" tool. In our view, there is nothing wrong with how "share" functions. It does not promote piracy per se, but when used in context with other article tools that do promote piracy, it helps reinforce the notion that publishers want users to "take" their content and do with it what they wish.
Stay tuned for our follow up white paper on best practices.
There is no question that article tools promote infringement. All you have to do is view the videos of the test participants as they use article tools and hear their responses to questions posed by the interviewer, to conclude that they do. All you have to do is see the large number of sites that have posted articles using the publisher's 'Print-Friendly' tool -- and are running ads on those articles with no links back to the publisher -- to see that the print tool is used to cross the line between personal use and commercial use.
The question that needs to be asked is, "Should article tools be modified to minimize infringement and increase traffic and revenue for publishers?" You seem to reach the conclusion that the answer is yes. That is the conclusion reached by our study.
You say, "standard article tools as a means of protecting content or limiting use is a poor choice." You also say, "it makes sense to apply them and channel that energy through a system you have some control over." Our study concluded that article tools are a GREAT way to minimize piracy (protect content) and ENABLE personal uses and commercial uses in a way that gives publishers more control. Sure, we think iCopyright's article tools accomplish that, but publishers can take steps on their own to correct the flaws.
The Big Picture is what publishers should do to change the way their article tools are currently implemented. Article Tools have caused publishers to become schizophrenic. They "tell" readers, "please take our content, use it, share it." Then when users do so, publishers and sites like yours (Plagiarism Today) tell them its bad and they should stop "taking" content. Publishers have caused the very problem they feel victimized by. Article Tools need to be put into context for users and strike the right balance between sharing and taking; and between personal uses and commercial uses. Most users do not know the difference.
Another small nit, but an important nuance, you say our study takes issue with the "share" link that lets users Digg content or post headlines on other social networking sites. Our study specifically excludes the "share" tool. In our view, there is nothing wrong with how "share" functions. It does not promote piracy per se, but when used in context with other article tools that do promote piracy, it helps reinforce the notion that publishers want users to "take" their content and do with it what they wish.
Stay tuned for our follow up white paper on best practices.
1 reply
9 months ago
in Inside Look at iCopyright Discovery on Plagiarism Today
Jonathan, a thorough and balanced write-up as always. We can set you up in Conductor, the iCopyright system for Publishers. That would allow you to use Discovery on your content. We do hope to port Discovery to the Creators system in the near future. You're right, for now it is limited to publishers who supply us with an XML feed. A couple of follow up points:
Match Detection -- we do our own "fingerprinting" of the content. We do use a major search engine to find matches. No need to reinvent the wheel. The big search engines have indexed more pages and have better spiders than we could build.
Resolution Assistance -- i think Discovery really shines here. It captures various points of contact for the site and allows notices to be sent to some or all of these contacts. Discovery will find the right people. At a minimum, it will find the host ISP and serve them.
Speed/Usability -- the speed of identifying matches and sending redresses and following up to see if the site took the required action is very good. Where Discovery could use some improvement is doing this automatically so that the publisher does not have to review and act on each suspect individually. We are working on letting the publisher pre-define rules and policies for letting Discovery ID the sites, send redresses and tahe escalation action when appropriate, without human intervention.
The objective of Discovery is to verify legitimate users and to identify non-legit users so that they become legitimate users. It's not as much about getting sites to stop using content -- although Discovery can do that. It's about enabling sites to use content in a way that compensates the publisher, gives them credit and brings them new traffic. A license or a link action is more valuable than a take-down action!
Match Detection -- we do our own "fingerprinting" of the content. We do use a major search engine to find matches. No need to reinvent the wheel. The big search engines have indexed more pages and have better spiders than we could build.
Resolution Assistance -- i think Discovery really shines here. It captures various points of contact for the site and allows notices to be sent to some or all of these contacts. Discovery will find the right people. At a minimum, it will find the host ISP and serve them.
Speed/Usability -- the speed of identifying matches and sending redresses and following up to see if the site took the required action is very good. Where Discovery could use some improvement is doing this automatically so that the publisher does not have to review and act on each suspect individually. We are working on letting the publisher pre-define rules and policies for letting Discovery ID the sites, send redresses and tahe escalation action when appropriate, without human intervention.
The objective of Discovery is to verify legitimate users and to identify non-legit users so that they become legitimate users. It's not as much about getting sites to stop using content -- although Discovery can do that. It's about enabling sites to use content in a way that compensates the publisher, gives them credit and brings them new traffic. A license or a link action is more valuable than a take-down action!
1 reply
Jonathan Bailey
I would definitely be interested in using Discovery on my content. I really like what I see so far but until I use it first hand it is hard to tell. Thank you for answering my questions. I'll be in touch about setting up a Discovery account for myself to do hands-on review.
Regarding match detection, I agree that there is not much point in reinventing the wheel but, at the same time, I'm not ready to call search a solved problem. Any time you partner with a third party search, as I found out using other products, you share the limitations they have. There's good and bad to that approach though, usually the good does outweigh the bad.
Resolution Assistance is a tough art in general. This is one thing I'll be looking at closely. I have a pretty big virtual roledex of DMCA agents that I've compiled over the years. If this can be worked out and automated, it will be worth almost anyprice.
As far as speed goes, I think the main goal right now is to be faster than doing it by hand and, barring any major server issues, It think you will be that. However, I get nervous when I hear about people automating resolution efforts. That is how you get problems such as the YouTube debacles and the recent AP Drudge Retort controversy. I guess I'm just asking that you move with caution into that area.
Finally, I agree that links and licenses are more valuable. The only issue right now is that there is no legal system. With my personal resolution efforts, my link request efforts have averaged about 50% resolution, DMCA about 95%.
Hope that helps!
Regarding match detection, I agree that there is not much point in reinventing the wheel but, at the same time, I'm not ready to call search a solved problem. Any time you partner with a third party search, as I found out using other products, you share the limitations they have. There's good and bad to that approach though, usually the good does outweigh the bad.
Resolution Assistance is a tough art in general. This is one thing I'll be looking at closely. I have a pretty big virtual roledex of DMCA agents that I've compiled over the years. If this can be worked out and automated, it will be worth almost anyprice.
As far as speed goes, I think the main goal right now is to be faster than doing it by hand and, barring any major server issues, It think you will be that. However, I get nervous when I hear about people automating resolution efforts. That is how you get problems such as the YouTube debacles and the recent AP Drudge Retort controversy. I guess I'm just asking that you move with caution into that area.
Finally, I agree that links and licenses are more valuable. The only issue right now is that there is no legal system. With my personal resolution efforts, my link request efforts have averaged about 50% resolution, DMCA about 95%.
Hope that helps!
11 months ago
in Creating a Custom License on Plagiarism Today
Interested to hear from you and your readers if giving creators the ability to change the titles as well as the descriptions, outweighs the possible downside of creating confusion among the general public (potential licensees). One of the nice things about Creative Commons is that it provides a standard (uniform) set of licenses. That's why you can change the descriptions, but not the titles in (C)reators. The other shortcomings are duly noted and slated for fix in the next release.
(C)reators certainly needs to provide additional templates for Terms of Use. It was rightly slammed by beta testers in Canada for being to U.S. centric. Even though creators can edit the terms, they should have valid templates to begin with, depending upon their residence and needs. This blog also points out the need for better documentation! Thank you, Jonathan. We are learning from beta testers like you who are putting the app through its paces.
(C)reators certainly needs to provide additional templates for Terms of Use. It was rightly slammed by beta testers in Canada for being to U.S. centric. Even though creators can edit the terms, they should have valid templates to begin with, depending upon their residence and needs. This blog also points out the need for better documentation! Thank you, Jonathan. We are learning from beta testers like you who are putting the app through its paces.
1 reply
Jonathan Bailey
I would submit a different argument. That allowing the license terms to be changed as well as the description already sacrifices the benefit of a uniform license set.
One of the perks of CC is not only consistent naming, but that we know my CC-BY-SA license will be the same as every other CC-BY-SA license. With iCopyrght Creators, that isn't certain, one has to read the description and the license itself to be sure that they are following the license.
The benefit of the standard license is already lost. One already has to read the full license text so I don't see how allowing title changes can hurt, but rather, only simplify the process of interpreting iCopyright license.
As far as being too U.S.-centric goes, I agree. You need to include provisions for dealing with moral rights at least as that is something that exists almost everywhere else in the world.
However, I also understand that you had to start somewhere and the U.S. was the most logical place...
One of the perks of CC is not only consistent naming, but that we know my CC-BY-SA license will be the same as every other CC-BY-SA license. With iCopyrght Creators, that isn't certain, one has to read the description and the license itself to be sure that they are following the license.
The benefit of the standard license is already lost. One already has to read the full license text so I don't see how allowing title changes can hurt, but rather, only simplify the process of interpreting iCopyright license.
As far as being too U.S.-centric goes, I agree. You need to include provisions for dealing with moral rights at least as that is something that exists almost everywhere else in the world.
However, I also understand that you had to start somewhere and the U.S. was the most logical place...
I think part of this stems from publishers being schizophrenic by themselves though. I write articles and do reporting for a journalism commission and am watching as papers and other publishers flounder while trying to find the best approach for their content and I think many are trying to have it both ways, opening up content to the masses while tightening enforcement. Needless to say, that's going to cause problems.
On that note, I'm going to be very interested in your follow up white papers and will report on them gladly when they are released.
Regarding the nit, thank you for the clarification, I'm going to edit it in just a minute...