covered a new startup in the copyright verification field

However, Myows is far from the only service that that is providing instant, unofficial verification of ownership of created works. The non-repudiation field has exploded in recent years. Gone are the days of expensive registries that rivaled the Copyright Office in price (while still being unofficial in nature) as now we have fast, cheap, services that offer to preserve your work and your claim on it.

But even there these services have grown, no longer merely providing a certificate of ownership, but branching out to provide help with licensing and even with infringement resolution.

So which service should you use? It’s a tough question that depends heavily upon what your specific needs and wants are. To help make the process a little bit easier, I’ve created a chart, which I’ve embedded and linked to below, to help you decide which of the services are right for you.

The Companies

Specifically, I decided to compare the services provided by five different sites. Myows, SafeCreative, Numly, MyFreeCopyright and Registered Commons. They are five of the biggest and best-known services in this field and all have been covered on this site in the past.

A notable omission is C-Registry.us, which is more of an orphan works protection service than a non-repudiation one, though it has some functionality as such. Also, since C-Registry is targeted almost entirely at artists and photographers, making it much less useful to bloggers and other types of creators.

However, if you are a visual artist, it is likely a service that is well worth looking into, especially if you sell stock photos.

I then took a look at the companies based up on some of the most popular and requested features. The results are embedded below.

The Chart

Click for Full Size

Link to Google Doc

*Extension is out of date.

Definitions

Very quickly, I want to clarify the meaning of the elements in the chart and what they mean.

1. Cost: The cost of the service.
2. Types of Work: The kinds of files/content that can be uploaded. If a service allows “files” there is no separation between different content types.
3. Works Fingerprinted: Refers to creating a hash of a file that can be compared against later. This is often how works are verified or identified at a later date. It does not involve any visual mark on the work (watermarking) or additional tag. It’s just a unique hash of the file or work’s content that will match other copies of the work.
4. Works Stored: Are the works themselves stored on the service for backup and/or later viewing.
5. Certificate Provided: Whether or not the service provides a printable certificate for easy verification.
6. Barcode Provided: Refers to a machine-readable barcode, commonly used on physical objects.
7. Public Verification: Refers to the ability of someone unsure of the ownership of a work to submit a copy of it (or other known information about it) and see who owns or created the work.
8. Custom License/License to Individuals: A custom license is your ability to draft your own license or set new restrictions on use. The ability to license to individuals is the ability to give a person or company a license to use the work and track that license in the system.
9. Creative Commons Compatible: Whether or not users can select CC licenses.
10. Contact Author: A means to contact the author within the system, not just a profile used by the author.
11. Detection/Resolution Assistance: A Means to detect copies of the work and assistance in bringing about a resolution.
12. API Available: A means for programmers and other service providers to interact with the service, including submitting works. Some may be in private beta at this time.
13. Firefox/WordPress Extensions: Add-ons for the Firefox browser and WordPress blogging platform.
14. RSS Integration: The ability to read content from a site’s RSS and automatically register it, very useful for bloggers.

Beyond the Chart

Though the chart does an overall decent job at comparing the various features to one another, there are a few things that aren’t displayed on the chart that are worth mentioning.

1. Myows is a clear winner on the ease-of-use front, having designed a system that is both attractive and easy to use. Great for those who aren’t familiar with these kinds of services.
2. Safe Creative has a robust API and, through it, has partnered with music sharing site Jamendo to protect the works uploaded to the site.
3. Registered Commons is extremely difficult to use and is targeted mostly at creators of larger, more involved works, as the pricing strategy indicates. It also has a very powerful system for verifying author identities to provide further proof of ownership.

In the end, all of the services have their separate strengths and weaknesses. Myows, for example, is the only service to provide resolution assistance and has great handling of licenses. However, there is no public verification of works. Safe Creative is extremely feature-rich, having at least some capability on all fronts but can be confusing and intimidating to use.

Numly, on the other hand, focuses on speed and simplicity though some of its best features, its extensions, are dated and it does cost money to use it with an account large enough for most creators. MyFreeCopyright is the only one with RSS integration, which makes it invaluable for bloggers, but only has minimal licensing features and doesn’t provide certificates for content other than Web-based ones.

Finally, Registered Commons has a very robust hashing system and very powerful user identification service but all of it comes at a high cost and with a very difficult interface.

All in all, it seems every service has a great deal to offer users and a great deal to learn from others.

Bottom Line

So it all comes back to the question of which service should you use. The answer is obvious: It depends.

From where I’m sitting, both Myows and Safe Creative are clear leaders in this field. Myows is well-aimed at novices and those interested in copyright enforcement where Safe Creative is more aimed at veteran users and those who need public verification and in battling the orphan works problem.

However, I use MyFreeCopyright on this site due to its RSS integration (no reason not to) and have used Numly in the past through its WordPress plugin. Finally, Registered Commons would likely be best used by those creating works that may be considered valuable financially as their identity verification program and strong hashing may provide greater security, but at a price that isn’t practical for most.

On that front though, I am interested in your thoughts. Which do you think is the best and why?

Disclosure: Chris Matthieu, the owner of Numly, is a long-time friend and former co-host of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

As I mentioned yesterday, it has come en vogue for programmers to create simple plagiarism checkers that feed queries to Google or another search engine. The other tool commonly created is non-repudiation service, such as Numly, MyFreeCopyright, etc. that register works in their database to provide verification of ownership and time created. However, as with the new plagiarism checkers, they rarely meet or add anything to well-established and trusted services, such as the ones above.

Though non-repudiation services are never substitutes for formal registration with the U.S. Copyright Office, they can provide a stop-gap between USCO registrations and some verification in the court of public opinion. They can also help transmit license and other information, making them a potentially useful service.

Now, we have another entrant into the non-repudiation field, this one entitled Safe Creative. Though, on the service, it provides a pretty standard set of features, time and date stamp, downloading of content, etc., the service hopes that its additional features might make it a compelling alternative to competing services and that its price tag of free makes it the number one choice for creators on the Web.

But can it stand up to the established services? The answer seems to be a resounding yes.

How it Works

Safe Creative works on the same principles as virtually all other non-repudiation services. Users register for an account on the site and then set it up with their personal information.

Users can then upload the works that they wish to register. Doing so requires them to provide the title of the work, the content of the work, either as a file upload or pasted text, select the work type, select public or private registration, indicate whether they are the author, the rights holder or both, and then select a license for the work. Authors also have the option of providing an excerpt for the work, tagging it and designating an alias for it.

Once the author has uploaded the work, they are then provided with a series of buttons and badges that they can use on the work and a URL that links to the registration online (sample).

One way that Safe Creative stands out from the other sites and services is that it does not merely fingerprint the data, but actually stores the files. Whether you upload text, images, audio or video, the site actually stores the content (up to 400 mb), making available for download if that option is selected. Where other services have relied on investigators to check a fingerprint to verify the validity of a file, Safe Creative lets those interested view the file for themselves.

All of this is fairly straightforward but what makes Safe Creative unique is a series of “add on” features that it hopes will make the service more compelling, powerful and easy to use.

The Good

Beyond the standard set of features that let users upload, stamp and license their work, Safe Creative tries to expand its service offerings in a number of ways, including the following:

1. Barcodes: With each registration, Safe Creative provides a series of barcodes and labels that can be applied to the work. Though Numly has done this for years, what makes Safe Creative unique is that it provides various kinds of barcodes, including a numerical one (human readable), a regular line barcode and a data matrix one (example above). Also interesting is that Safe Creative provides the labels in 72, 150 and 300 DPI, making them viable for works posted on the Web, printed at home and printed professionally.
2. Bulk Register Feature: If you wish to register multiple works at the same time, such as all of the images in a gallery, you can use the bulk register feature. This will allow you to create a registration template and then upload many files at once to save time. You can also save the template for use later.
3. Bookmarklet: Under “Tools” in the account area, there is an IE and Firefox-compatible bookmarklet that lets users automatically register content on the Web. You can use it with any text that you select or, if you are a WordPress or Blogger user, it can pull the content straight from your post creation page, adding the title and other information in for you.
4. Advanced API: Though no applications use it yet and the features appear to be in early testing, Safe Creative has laid the groundwork for a robust API, giving all users both shared and private keys. This could easily pave the way for Safe Creative integration into various applications and platforms.
5. Pre-Registration: Finally, the site allows you to upload a work and then make modifications to it for the next 24 hours. Though any changes, obviously, also alter the timestamp, it’s a great way to fix any errors that you see in your post after submission and don’t want to appear in your final record.

But as impressive as these features are, the service also has its drawbacks and limitations. Unfortunately, some of them may hinder the effectiveness of the site as a non-repudiation service.

Some Problems

Before one jumps to Safe Creative and begins using the service, there are a few issues that need to be weighed before trusting it blindly as a service.

1. Based in Spain: Though this is not a drawback in and of itself, the site is registered and hosted in Spain. Since the effectiveness of any such service in court would depend heavily on the creators of the site testifying to the validity of the information, for U.S. residents, having the service creators so far away could pose a large challenge in that unlikely event. Obviously though, this would be a benefit for anyone in Spain or elsewhere close by.
2. No WordPress/MovableType Plugin: Though the bookmarklet reads from the WordPress write page and the API should, theoretically, make it possible to create such a plugin, one does not exist right now and there is no automated system for pulling from a feed, as with MyFreeCopyright. As such, the system is hardly “set and forget” but something that you have to remember to do with every post. This limits its usefulness by virtually ensuring that some works will not be registered timely.
3. Bugs and Glitches: As I’ve gone through the service, I’ve seen a variety of minor issues with usability. Some visual bugs caused tabs and headers in the site to break, a confusing navigation system kept dropping me onto the home page of the site and help is pretty scarce at the moment. Though you can easily overcome most of these problems with a little work, it makes the service more difficult to use and seem less professional than one would like.

It is also worth noting that the bulk import feature is somewhat limited by the fact that it only accepts file. While photographers and podcasters will likely not have an issue, there is no way, at this time, to easily import a WordPress database or a collection of content posted solely on the Web. If you do not have your content in a collection of files on your PC, you pretty much have to do the works one at a time through the ordinary process (though the bookmarklet can help some).

Though none of these problems are what I would consider “deal breakers”, they do show that the service is far from flawless and does have a ways to go before it becomes the perfect solution.

Comparisons to Other Services

Compared to other services in the field, Safe Creative fares pretty well.

The most obvious comparison is with Numly, as the features seem to be most on parity. In that regard, Safe Creative actually seems to hold something of an advantage as it provides more bar code options and is completely free for unlimited use, where Numly requires a monthly fee for more advanced accounts. However, Numly is based within the U.S., allows users to designate a licensee (thus enabling them to register each copy of a work) and has offered a WordPress plugin in the past and is likely to do so again soon (though it is currently defunct).

MyFreeCopyright, on the other hand, holds a slight edge on simplicity. Due to its integration with RSS, the site makes it easier for bloggers to get content into the system (though there is often a delay in the material appearing) but offers fewer features in terms of registration services. There are no labels, no pre-registration (Numly provides no pre-registration either) and a more limited set of licenses available (MFC is CC and “All Rights Reserved” only).

All in all, Safe Creative stacks up pretty well against the competition, providing a free, albeit somewhat more limited, alternative to Numly. However, it lacks some of the critical features that were introduced by MyFreeCopyright, but those problems can and likely will be fixed by programmers as they take advantage of the API to create the plugins and extensions that are needed.

Though Safe Creative does provide a lot to get excited about, it is far from the perfect non-repudiation service. However, with a few simple fixes and improvements, it could become something that is pretty close.

Conclusions

In the end, Safe Creative is a solid choice for a non-repudiation service. Though bloggers will probably be better off with MyFreeCopyright for the moment, it makes sense to keep an eye open for plugins for Safe Creative. If done correctly, Safe Creative not only could provide a solution more effective than MyFreeCopyright, registering works as they are created rather than once a day, but with added features.

Ideally, I think it would be interesting if a plugin for Safe Creative took advantage of the pre-registration feature of Safe Creative to register posts in the draft stage, updating them until they were registered. That way, if there were a dispute over an unplublished post, say one involving a multiple-author blog, the service could be used to verify ownership.

All in all though, it is a solid service and it would be nice to see programmers and others take advantage of the API to create some new tools.

In the end, The Safe Creative available today is really just the beginning. How useful it becomes is going to depend upon what others decide to do with it.

Here’s hoping that there are some crafty programmers that are going to do some very exciting things.

On one hand, non-repudiation is a relatively easy business to start. All you need is a means for people to upload content, a way to fingerprint it (something that is available via open source) and a Web interface to control the uploads and display the information. Once you’ve done that, you can charge for your service based on a fee system you set up.

The problem, however, is that it is very hard to do one right. Security has to be solid, so that even the admins can not tamper with uploads, it has to interact with blogging platforms and, for maximum benefit, it has to accept all types of media. This is surprisingly difficult to do while ensuring that your service could stand up in court if needed.

The question becomes whether or not non-repudiation services are worthwhile for either customers or creators. If the services themselves are a scam or if they provide some real benefit. It is not a simple question and one’s answer will vary wildly on their situation.

What is Non-Repudiation

In the broadest terms, non-repudiation is a concept of ensuring that another party can not repudiate, or refute the validity, or a certain fact, statement, etc. In short, it is a way of proving that something is true.

Most commonly non-repudiation issues deal with signatures and contracts, but also, in the case of copyright, with proving authorship and time of creation.

On copyright matters, non-repudiation usually refers to some kind of service that is used at the time of creation. Typically one submits their work to the service, where it is then fingerprinted or otherwise preserved, and a report is generated about what was submitted and when. Examples on the Web include MyFreeCopyright, Registered Commons and Numly.

The idea is that, in the event the authorship comes into dispute, the creator can then use the service to back up their claim and provide extra evidence of ownership.

Though no non-repudiation service has been tested in court to my knowledge, at least no Web-based one, in theory it could work so long as the operators were willing to be deposed and testify about the validity of their service and of the reports they generate.

This is not to say that non-repudiation is sure bet as any flaw in the system could hinder its ability to support the claim, but it does mean that the benefits and drawbacks of non-repudiation should be weighed carefully.

Potential Uses for Non-Repudiation

Even though everything on the Web is recorded in dozens of different ways, it can be surprisingly difficult to determine when something was created and by whom. The reason is that most timestamps can be changed, including blog timestamps, server clocks among others.

This can cause headaches in a copyright dispute, making it unclear who posted what first and where. Non-repudiation services attempt to resolve that by bringing a relatively impartial third party into the mix that documents the time of submission, what was uploaded and where it came from.

It is a bit like having a witness to the creation of a work but, ideally, one that is computerized, cannot lie and will be trusted to tell the truth.

However, as one might imagine, the execution is a bit more difficult than implied.

The Problems and Limitations

The biggest limitation, at least in the U.S., is that in order to sue for copyright infringement, you have to first register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. That registration costs $35 and can take months to confirm, but it provides both a non-repudiation service and prima facie evidence of copyright ownership. Legally, it is many times more valuable than any third-party service and, since you have to do it any way to take any legal action, it is likely all one would want or need.

That being said, the USCO is a notoriously slow, difficult to use and expensive. Theoretically, though it would provide less protection, one could use a third-party service and only register when and if they felt the need to take legal action, but that creates other issues, especially around the damages that could be claimed.

The other problem is that none of these services have been tested in any court anywhere in the world. It is unclear what, if any, effect they would have on a case. The Internet Archive was tossed out in one trial due to a lack of information about how the pages were generated and it is clear that no service would stand up in court without the cooperation of the creators.

Of course, even with the support of the creators, it is hard to determine how much use such a service would be. It would depend heavily on the security protocols in place at the company and how reliable the system was. Unfortunately, we have no way to know how well it will hold until after it gets tested.

The biggest problem, however, is the cost in both money and time. Preparing works for non-repudiation can be time-consuming, depending on the service, and expensive. All for something that may do no good when it becomes necessary.

What is worse is that many of these services can promote themselves in ways that make false promises and lead creators into thinking they have rights and protections they don’t have, creating even greater problems than if the creator had done nothing at all.

In short, these services can be valuable tools, but only when used within their limitations and not relied upon exclusively.

So Who Should Use It?

The question then becomes, “When is it appropriate to use such services?”

Clearly, they can not be relied upon as the sole means of proving ownership, especially in the U.S., but they can still provide some benefit.

Consider the following cases:

1. Bloggers: If you’re a blogger, registering every entry is impractical. You can get most of the same benefit by regularly re-registering your entire site. In between registrations, a good non-repudiation service can validate when entries went live, provide proof in case a dispute breaks out in the court of public opinion and give bloggers a second line of proof compared to their own timestamps.
2. Other Countries: If you live in another country that does not have a USCO-like system of registration, a non-repudiation service may help some. Though not as strong as a government-backed system, it can some support.
3. Works Needing Interim Registration: If for some reason a work needs to be distributed on the Web or otherwise published before a registration can be completed, which is now very rare considering the USCO has an online system, an instant registration with a non-repudiation service can provide a backup until a formal one can be filed and at least offer some proof to the validity of claims of authorship and creation.

In all of this, the critical theme is that non-repudiation is no substitution for USCO registration (even if you are not in the U.S.) but it can provide some service in some cases.

However, the problem is that many of these companies, with their literature and their service, target copyright holders that will get no benefit from what they offer. If, for example, you want to register a novel before sending it to publishers, there is no reason to use a non-repudiation service, you can simply file for a USCO registration and be better protected.

The same goes for undisplayed artwork, musical pieces and so on.

The key is that non-repudiation can fill a gap in the USCO registration process that makes it impractical for many works to be registered before they are put on the Web. Anything else, almost always, would be better served by a real registration.

What to Look For in a Company

For the most part, cost and convenience are going to be the most important things to look for in such a company. Though other aspects may be what determines whether a service holds up in court, those elements are almost impossible to grade until such a situation happens. Thus, you want to spend as little as possible on the protection as reasonable.

Though you clearly won’t want to give your trust to an obviously dicey site, the less you pay and the less energy it takes to use the service, the service, the better. Ideally, it would capture your content automatically, preferably through RSS or a plugin, and do so for either free or a low monthly fee.

Since all services have an equal promise of their ability to stand up in court, no promise, these become the deciding factors.

Conclusions

Non-repudiation does have a limited role and there is definitely a need for it. There has been an unsightly gap created by the U.S. Copyright Office and its means for registration that these services can fill.

However, the role is very limited and the service is frequently pushed upon the wrong kind of copyright holder because they are more often willing to pay for any security they can get.

In the end, though online non-repudiation is faster, better and more reliable than poor man’s copyright, it is far from perfect and should never be counted on as the sole means of protection.

Still, with free and easy services available, there is little reason not to at least try them out, especially if your work can not be registered with the USCO in a timely manner for whatever reason.

In the end, what I think others should do is this: Be smart about the service(s) you choose, be aware of the limitations of non-repudiation and don’t give in to scam sites that overcharge and over-promise.

If you do that, then it can be a valuable tool that you should consider.

That is one of the reasons that, on this site, I have tried very hard to cover content licensing as well as plagiarism and copyright infringement detection/cessation. My goal has always been to help Webmasters develop a balanced system for protecting and exploiting their work.

However, even as companies have risen to the challenge of helping bloggers detect and stop plagiarism and content theft, those that have attempted to make a business off helping bloggers license their content have, for the most part, fallen flat.

So where did these companies go wrong? What can be done to fix the problem? Is content licensing dead as a business model?

These are tough questions without easy answers.

The Problem Comes to Light

In late 2006, I hard written a post entitled Content Licensing: The Sensational Seven that detailed the best content licensing sites available at that time.

When I ran across the article a week ago, I realized that three of the services, Lisensa, Scoopt Words and Yepic had all either closed shop or had announced their closure.

But while three closures out of seven may be a good percentage, especially considering the failure rate of startups in general, it is important to note that two of the four remaining, Numly and Registered Commons, are non-repudiation services that allow bloggers to also affix license information and one of the two licensing services, Copyright.com, is a stalwart of the traditional media not targeted at bloggers.

Only one licensing service in the article, BlogBurst, was both targeted at bloggers and was still in business after a year and a half.

To the credit of those who closed, Lisensa was replaced by RightsAgent, which is still in operation but struggling to gain traction, Scoopt is continuing to offer their photography licensing service and Yepic, despite a promised closure date of June 8th, is still active (though various parts of the site seem to be in disarray).

It is clear that companies who try to make a living off of helping bloggers license their content for money are struggling but why is something of a mystery.

The answer, however, likely lies in the medium itself and the challenges that any company would face in trying to market free content for cash.

Not-So Happy Times

Theoretically, these should be good times for companies wanting to get in on licensing blog content. Creative Commons launched their CC+ initiative, which makes it possible to extend Creative Commons Licenses, making it easy to start such a business and build on the success off CC.

Most importantly though, largely thanks to Creative Commons, more bloggers than ever are aware of and thinking about content licensing. It is a popular topic for bloggers and becoming better understood every day.

The problem, however, is not a lack of bloggers. The problem is a lack of buyers. Though bloggers seem to be relatively easy to lure with promises of easy licensing and quick money, few seem to be willing to buy what they are selling.

The result is that most accounts make little, if any, money and the company stuggles to earn a profit off the few who do generate sales.

The reason for this is five fundamental flaws with licensing blog content for cash:

1. Quality: Though most blogs are good to the people who read them, very few are up to the standards of people who would want to pay money for content.
2. Content is Already Free: The content involved, in most cases, is already free on the Web and most bloggers will give permission for reuse with a simple letter and a promise of attribution. This also creates duplicate content issues and makes the purchaser second to publish the work, further reducing the work’s value to a potential buyer.
3. Limited Buyer Pool: Even if the work is seen to be of high value, there is a very small pool of potential buyers. Mainstream media outlets and blog networks are two obvious choices, but very few bloggers are going to pay for content they could easily write.
4. Paid Blogging: For most potential buyers, it is a better deal for them to contact a blogger and have them create custom content for their site at a rate likely comparable to purchasing the old, stale content from their blog.
5. Confusion: Licensing content is confusing to start with and the injection of a middle man, generally, does not help. It introduces a third party and, depending on the system, can make things much worse in this area.

The result of this is that the vast majority of blog content licensing services are destined to fail and it would seem that the industry is largely doomed before it begins.

However, there are ways companies an exploit this and turn what appears to the ultimate buyer’s market into a place where serious money can be made.

Gold from a Coal Mine

It is clear that profiting from blog licensing is going to require more than just having bloggers put a badge on their site and raking in the profits.

If a company is going to stay alive in the blog licensing field, they need to look at other options.

1. Be a Non-Profit: The first idea is to simply not worry about profit at all, be like Creative Commons and just offer tools and resources to help bloggers, as well as other Webmasters, and rely on donations and good will. Though CC seems to have a lock on this market, there may be room for other players if they can bring something new to the market.
2. Perform Quality Control: Blog Burst has remained successful in large part due to its quality control. Most blogs are not accepted into the service and this keeps the non-selling membership to a minimum.
3. Sell the Blogger: Rather than trying to sell the actual blog content, consider selling the blogger and making him or her available for custom writing jobs. In short, don’t be an agent for the words, be an agent for the person.
4. Offer an Additional Service: Registered Commons, My Free Copyright and Numly all offer licensing assistances as part of their service but primarily focus on being non-repudiation services. This keeps them from relying on the licensing element as a business model.
5. Profit from the Bloggers: Since bloggers will inevitably outnumber buyers, profiting from them makes sense. This can be done either through ad revenue or, if you can justify it, a fee for your services.
6. Premium Content: One can also skip the issue of trying to sell recycled content and focus on selling “premium” content by bloggers, something that Associated Content and Yepic both attempt to do.

The key is to not rely on the sale of regular blog content as your business model. Though many bloggers produce great work well worth the price they request for licensing it, the nature of blog content limits how much others will pay for it and how often they will buy.

Optimism. Or Something Like It

This is not to say that I am completely gloomy about the future of blog content licensing, just that I think the traditional business model of making money by selling already-available content is not likely to thrive, even though licensing companies can exploit the “long tail” and offer a wide variety of information to buyers.

Still, there are several blog licensing companies that I am optimistic about. Companies that have either proved themselves already or are exploring promising new models.

1. BlogBurst: Controversial it may have been at times, there is little doubt that Blog Burst has been around longer than just about anyone in this field. Their tight quality controls and strong partnerships with mainstream media have kept them going even as others have struggled to gain traction.
2. iCopyright Creators: Though the Creators service is new, iCopyright is not. It is a well-established and trusted name in content licensing, used by outlets such as the Associated Press and Reuters. Combined with a business model that takes no revenue from actual licensing deals, it has promise to be a major player in the future, if it can gain traction.
3. Associated Content: Another industry stalwart, Associated Content has an effective rating system that works to perform some quality control and a business model that combines sales and advertising revenue. Also, it’s focus on premium, unique content seems to help it attract both visitors and customers.

While other companies will likely still be around in a few years, especially the non-profits and those primarily offering other services, these are the content salesmen right now that seem to have the best position and the brightest future.

Of course, on the Web, that can change in a moment’s notice.

Note: Mentioning a company in this list is not necessarily approval for their service or their policies, just an observation that they appear to be in a good position to be in business years down the road. See other articles on the site for my opinions about the companies.

Conclusions

I think the problem with content licensing can be summarized by taking a quick look at my user page on RightsAgent.

Though I added the button to my site shortly after publishing my first article about them back in January, this site has only received six “credits”.

Since my content is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA license, meaning there is no fee for commercial use, there is no charge for these credits. RightsAgent has been offered for the convinience of the licensor (to aid in proper attribution) and the mutual protection of the two of us.

So far, by my math, no one has taken advantage of it. All six credits were given to myself by me during testing. This is despite the fact that dozens of sites have reused content on PT, with my blessing.

Though many may consider RightsAgent superfluous on this site, it is worrisome that no one was at least curious about the functionality it can provide.

The simple truth is that almost no one wants to go through a third party to license blog content and, while the business model can work, it is going to require more than simply being a passive salesman. It is about brokering deals, controlling quality and forging relationships.

In short, these companies need to function less like Web 2.0 services and more like traditional agents. Sometimes there is no substitute for a large personal network or a handshake agreement.

If blog licensing companies wish to succeed, they need to learn how to combine the traditional license dealmaking with new technologies.

If they can do that, then I suspect there is nothing stopping one from making a decent living helping bloggers license their works.

Originally created by Cal Evans and licensed under the GPL version 2.0. The plugin automatically submits posts created in WordPress to be fingerprinted, have their ESN generated an then place the information in the post.

This site as well as Mike Kavis’ blog on itToobox both use the plugin with great success.

The plugin is in need of some updates and it appears that Evans has moved on to other projects. I attempted to email him about this but have not received a reply. Among the requested improvements are the following:

• Creation of ESN after permalink has been created so that the permalink can be placed into the ESN information.
• Fixes to the display of the Numly graphic so that tracking will work in Numly
• More advanced options to give greater flexibility in how the plugin submits information.

If anyone is interested, feel free to contact Chris Matthieu and let him know. He can provide you with information about the Numly API (I couldn’t locate the documentation) and help you get started.

Any and all assistance here would be greatly appreciated.

My apologies to everyone for the limited posting this week. I am still very deep in my house (opening night is Saturday) and things will continue to be sparse here for a few more days. Thank you very much for your patience.

The judge’s order officially struck the pages from the record and removed the printouts from evidence.

This is, potentially, a major blow to n0n-repudiation services on the Web such as Numly, Registered Commons and Duly Noted. as this means that their primary function, providing proof of authorship, may be impractical for the court cases they are likely to be involved in.

What Happened

The case in question, Novak v. Tucows, revolves not around copyright issues, but on domain ownership. Novak was, and now again is, the owner of the domain “petswarehouse.com”. According to the Judge’s opinion (PDF), a legal dispute between Novak and a third party caused the domain to be transferred away from Novak’s control for a period of over a year between 2003 and 2004.

Novak then sued Tucows, his domain registrar, for allowing the transfer to take place saying that the lapse in control ruined his business and violated his trademark.

s part of the case, Novak, who is representing himself, submitted several print outs of pages from The Internet Archive in an attempt to show what various sites involved looked like on the days in question. Tucows, however, moved to strike that evidence and the judge granted that request saying that the printouts were inadmissible hearsay without “any authentication of plaintiff’s Internet printouts.”

Such authentication could take the form of either a sworn statement by anyone directly connected with the print outs, such as a staff member of the Internet Archive, or testimony from someone in such a position.

Though this is certainly a major development, it is very standard for evidence to have such a requirement in order to be admissible. It is not commentary on the Internet Archive, though some see it as such.

What it Means

First and foremost, this means that there must be a change in the way we, as Webmasters, look at non-repudiation services. Though these services can provide a great deal of value in the event of a copyright dispute, it is no longer a simple matter of taking printouts to the courtroom.

Getting such print outs admitted as evidence in an actual court case would involve either:

1. Getting a sworn statement from an employee of one of the sites hosting the page or
2. Having such a person testify in court about it.

Both of these processes can be expensive, especially when one looks at travel costs, and would be out of reach for most small claims copyright cases.

Even the certificates that many of the services, such as Registered Commons and Duly Noted, generate would not be considered primia facie evidence of authorship (meaning “on its face”) and would be equally inadmissible without some kind of corroborating testimony.

This isn’t the end of such services, they still have plenty of usefulness, but it will change the manner in which they are used.

How to Respond

Realistically, no one should have ever expected courts to accept the word of a non-repudiation service without at least some form of corroboration. Courts can not distinguish between good and bad services and would need at least some testimony in order to accept the output from such a service into evidence.

However, now that it is coming out more strongly in case law, it is time to consider taking steps to mitigate against this.

1. Register with the U.S. Copyright Office: A certificate from the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO)is considered prima facie evidence of authorship. There is no need to subpoena anyone from the Copyright Office, no need get a deposition. The official certificate with the government seal is considered more than enough.
2. Establish Relationships with Non-Repudiation Services: Using the Internet Archive is dangerous by itself because it can be very difficult to get someone from the organization to testify. If you know who is providing your service and how to get in contact with them, it would be much easier to get them to testify on your behalf.
3. Develop A Backup: Non-repudiation services can be useful, but it is important to develop a back up plan to prove authorship. A local timestamp service may not carry much weight, but at least it could be admitted as evidence.

The bottom line is that, unless a case is worth enough money to warrant deposing a third party, likely in another part of the country, electronic non-repudiation services may not be of much value. This is unfortunate, but but not entirely unexpected.

Conclusions

This ruling, as logical as it may be, creates tremendous headaches for copyright holders. Until the USCO finalizes its long-promised Internet registration system, there is no immediate way to time stamp and verify authorship of a work in a way that will be accepted in a courtroom.

Though, clearly, electronic non-repudiation can have a great benefit in cases where the money involved is high, those cases would likely also require a USCO registration. Unless the USCO registration came after the infringing material first went up, it would seem that the electronic service would be superfluous.

However, these electronic services are still very useful in the court of public opinion. Though it is unlikely that a court case would hinge upon the evidence that they provide, they, especially the Internet Archive, have been used to separate the plagiarists from the original authors thus acting more as a protector of reputation than of ones full legal rights.

Still, it would be nice to see electronic non-repudiation services offer an assurance that they will be available to stand by their product under oath. Even though the cost factor might continue to be an issue, it would be assuring to know that, should a big enough dispute arise, the service will be there in your corner.

It might not be much, but it would be something.

Hat Tips:

Technology Law Update
Bureau of National Affairs (pay)