cc tech summit: digital copyright registry landscape
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Creative CommonsTechnology Summit20080618
DigitalCopyrightRegistryLandscape
MikeLinksvayerCreativeCommons
Image by *saipal Licensed under CC BY http://flickr.com/photos/saipal/257641202/
We believe in the Net, not a centralized, Soviet-style information bank controlled by a single organization.
Creative Commons FAQDecember 16, 2002http://web.archive.org/web/20021216155836/http://www.creativecommons.org/faq#faq_entry_3482
Q: Is Creative Commons building a database of licensed content?
A: Absolutely not. We believe in the Net, not a centralized, Soviet-style information bank controlled by a single organization. We are building tools so that the semantic web can identify and sort licensed works in a distributed, decentralized manner. We are not in the business of collecting content, or building databases of content.
Why talk about digital copyright registries now?
Original photo by Brooke Novak Licensed under CC BY http://flickr.com/photos/brookenovak/337889974/
I AM NOT A
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=29755
Original photo by EffervescentEva Licensed under CC BY http://flickr.com/photos/evaclicks/2273068693/
Why? (unordered)
Orphans
+ [de]centralization
+ Need for provenance
+ Registry-like functionality is an aspiration/framing for CC technology
+ A gaggle of startups: explicit and accidental, for and non-profit
= Folks want to know what CC will do in this space
Outline
What makes a copyright registry?
What makes a digital copyright registry?
Registry demand
Registry supply
Registry approaches
Challenges
Registry (as and for) Commons
For most of the history of copyright law in the U.S., registration was a necessary precondition to securing a copyright.
The aim of this traditional U.S. system was efficiency and clarity: registration (and the requirement to mark copyrighted work) made it relatively easy to identify a copyright holder to secure permission to use the copyrighted work in ways limited by copyright law.
In 1978, U.S. copyright became automatic. The U.S. Continues to maintain a copyright registry.
Because the registry is not mandatory, it is not a useful tool for identifying copyright owners.
In 2005 the U.S. Copyright Office received 531,720 registrations and recorded receipts from registration of $17,829,429.
In 2007 electronic filing went into beta.
What makes a digital copyright registry?
Digital interfaces for copyright holders and users (of course)
Not necessarily defined or primarily motivated by registration
Scale
Global
Registry Demand
UGC upload filtering
License management
User media organization
Collective rights management
Cultural heritage
Finding where content is posted
Timestamping (by copyright holders and users)
Supply: Build it and they will register
RegisteredCommons (here)
SafeCreative (here)
Numly
DulyNoted
Probably others
Supply: Manage a domain / existing database
Collecting societies
Cultural heritage institutions
MusicBrainz (here)
OpenLibrary (here)
Supply: Internal need or needed to provide other service
Surely every big web/media company?
NoAnk Media (here)
Supply: ~Side effect of service
Attributor (here)
Jamendo (here)
Last.fm
Flickr
YouTube
Registry Approaches: Cataloging works
User action/Attention
Crawl
Existing catalog curation by intermediary
Explicit registration by copyright holder
Penance for saying crowdsource read Commercialization of Wikis http://evan.prodromou.name/Talks/SXSW07
Registry Approaches: Using the catalog
Marked work with reference to registry
Content derived identifier lookup to registry
Search registry (many variants)
Processes naturally built on top of registry
Challenges
Identifying works
Identifying owners
Namespace monopolists
Making it webby
Benefit>cost (for effort above what the web provides anyway)
Who pays?
Scams
METACRAP!
Commons
Interoperable/SemWeb
Registries as open services
Registries with knowledge of public licenses
Beyond copyright
Issues of provenance are of particular relevance to copyright licensing on the web, but the decentralized web presents trust of agents and data as a general problem. A commons registry could evolve to address these problems beyond the scope of copyright
Beyond copyright
In line with CC relationship to the SemWeb and the shared interest of many in the CC community in addressing issues of commerce, privacy, trust, and transparency in a decentralized architecture (captured to some extent in ideas like VRM)
The Web is the registry
What does your registry add to the web?
One view
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Attribution
Author: Mike Linksvayer
Link: http://creativecommons.org
Questions?
Image by helmet13 Licensed under CC BY http://flickr.com/photos/22281745@N04/2148374633/