Disqus - Latest Comments for Mike ODonnell

Re: Linkworthy: ESBN.org

Mike ODonnell — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:32:58 -0000

Good concept, poor execution. iCopyright launched a similar system in 1998, now used on over 10 million works. It plans to launch a simplified version for bloggers, photographers and other types of individual creators this Fall. To participate in the beta system, drop me a note at mike@icopyright.com.

Re: iCopyright Launches Creator Services

Mike ODonnell — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:22:24 -0000

Jonathan, this is a very well done review: comprehensive, fair and balanced. I agree with most of your reservations and we will work to correct these before the public launch. I would like to make one correction. The "terms of use" of the licenses a creator wishes to offer are indeed customizable. The "edit terms of use" button is easy to miss, so that is obviously a UI flaw we need to fix! Keep up the good fight.

Re: Creating a Custom License

Mike ODonnell — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:56:39 -0000

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.

Re: Inside Look at iCopyright Discovery

Mike ODonnell — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:58:15 -0000

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!

Re: Do Article Tools Promote Copyright Infringement?

Mike ODonnell — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:19:47 -0000

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.

Re: 'Long Tail' Author Anderson: Free Doesn't Work As A Standalone Business Model

Mike ODonnell — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:52:44 -0000

Duh, like this is a great revelation. Most of iCopyright's publisher clients have pursued a balanced model of free and paid content. They never bought into the all-free, ad-only model. Most are doing just fine, thank you very much. I doubt Mr. Anderson intends to give his book away for free on the Internet. Bet you will have to buy it.

Re: The Year The Media Died: An Ode, Sort Of

Mike ODonnell — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:50:27 -0000

Simply beautiful! Haven't enjoyed an expose piece like this since Googlezon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT9ho2G0N_Y

Re: Interview, Steve Brill, Part 2: Lessons From Contentville

Mike ODonnell — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:35:21 -0000

I has a 100% chance of working. News is a commodity eagerly supplied for free by credible news sources that will never put it behind a pay wall. That will be the part that is free, as Steve says. That news can, however, be better monetized when readers want to do something with it besides viewing it -- like printing, emailing, saving, sharing, or posting. That is where publishers are missing the boat. (We have a whitepaper on this subject for those interested). The content that people will pay for by the article or by subscription, is the in-depth analysis and feature stories they can't get anywhere else, but need to have to do their jobs and to be informed. It's not that hard to do and it will "save" publishing and employ talented journalists and writers for the next 100 years.

Re: Yes, News Sites Are Facing A Crisis, But Aggregators Aren't The Problem

Mike ODonnell — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:43:13 -0000

Well written article. Grueskin calls it "engagement," we call it "usage." The money is definitely in usage and not in "page views." The data we collect from thousands of web properties clearly supports this proposition. More money is made when users click (engage) the print, email, post, and comment links, then it is by the mere fact the page was displayed by the user's browser. So why do so many publishers fail to monetize these links?

http://icopyright.blogspot.com/

Re: CNN Wire Launches A La Carte Store For Text Reports

Mike ODonnell — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:03:50 -0000

CORRECTION: The price of a story through iCopyright is not $500. In fact, most stories, including those of AP, are free-of-charge via the the "Post" link, as long as the posting site carries the publisher's ads with it. The price without ads varies by publisher, but is much less than $500 in most cases.

Re: A Solution To The Newspaper Industry's Battle With Google

Mike ODonnell — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:26:19 -0000

Ken, this is a excellent analysis and one of the best posts on this discourse. Too many are focused on defining the problem as a legal issue (fair use, copyright, DMCA, etc.) and not focused on workable solutions (21st century business models). As you know, we have been working on this solution for more than 10 years. We saw this day coming in 1999.

Our independent research shows that the solution is to make the content MORE accessible, not less. Unfortunately, the publishing industry has wrought the damage that has been done to itself by how they deploy article tools and their copyright notice. They inadvertantly promote the misuse of their content. The key to maximizing revenue and minimizing piracy of news and information content is to make it easy for people to use it (print, email, save, share,post) instantly and LEGALLY. Our research and the proposed soluton (that many publishers have begun to implement) is outlined in this white paper:

http://info.icopyright.com/article-tools-whitep...

It's not the end-all-be-all, but the user research proves it will solve a big part of the problem.

Re: Let's Try The Craigslist Model Again Or ASCAP Or ...

Mike ODonnell — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:04:48 -0000

All of the models proposed, including Mutter's "ViewPass," are seriously flawed in my view. Ubiquity is indeed required to make any of them work and that is not going to happen. The model that will work is "usage." Currently, publishers try to get paid for views, either through advertising or subscription. They giveaway usage, which ironically is valued much higer by their audience than are views. Publishers have it backwards. They should giveaway views and monetize uses. Usage can be ubiquitous across all publishers because it is automatically covered by international copyright law. I try to detail these thoughts in more depth on the iCopyright blog: http://icopyright.blogspot.com/

Re: Forget Fair Use, Pubs Want Ad Nets To Pay For 'Fair Syndication' Of Their Content

Mike ODonnell — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:15:44 -0000

Why petition the ad networks to share the revenue from sites that have illegally pilfered the content to begin with? That's like asking a used car dealer to give you some of the revenue for your car that he bought from a thief who stole it from you -- then resold to an unsuspecting buyer.

The better approach is to allow blogs and sites to instantly and legally post whatever articles they want and share the ad revenue with the publisher. All a site has to do is click the "post" link on the articles from a publisher's site, or subscribe to a clipping service that offers "instant posting" services on a revenue-sharing basis. That way, sites are rewarded for doing the right thing to begin with, rather getting compensated for stealing it to begin with.

Any publisher can enable this system and serve their own, much higher-paying ads, rather than splitting revenue with low-paying ad networks, by adding a simple script to their CMS.