iCopyright has been getting some pub this week with the announcement of a deal with AP.We've been using iCopyright or its technology for a several years on knoxnews and I've always liked how it works. When i first saw it, it was like, wow, it's basically all self-service? And in most cases, it is.
It's not meant as a way to keep grandma from emailing an article to Aunt Suzie, but rather a way to efficiently manage commercial reuse. And in these days of dwindling resources at newspapers, that's more important than ever.
Here's a some coverage from PaidContent and some from the Seattle firm's own blog.
Best of luck to the company.
ShareThis; "Christmas Treats")
; "David Carr of the New York Times")
; "FLDemocracy2012.com")
; "4178265189_4785cf3fa5.jpg")
; "9-22-11-2.png")
; "markgalsergplus.jpg")
; "IMG_0520.JPG")
; "Knox County Cell Calls on AT&T")
; "Bonnaroo 2011")
; "Sourcing Stories")
Google+
Just out of curiosity: How many folks actually use the iCopyright service when "reusing" content from knoxnews?
It seems a little archaic to me, but I'm definitely of the mindset that bloggers and their ilk should at least link or credit anyone whose work they reference regardless of an "iCopyright" or CC license.
Not that many. The most frequent users are companies or governmental entities that want to place the complete article on a Web site or in a printed piece. This eliminates a lot of the friction of those transactions. They usually first call the writer (phone tag), then get bumped to the section editor (phone tag), then get someone like me (phone tag, negotiation, etc). This can eliminate all that. You have a rate card and an instant access system.
There still are out of the box requests. And photo commercial reuse is handled on a case-by-case basis.
We're still of a mind that if someone intends to use our complete work product, it takes more than a credit. That may be an archaic concept. Is it somehow different than stealing your stylesheet? Or do you do you value that work product differently?
I agree with you on this point. And it shoulds like icopyright works for this purpose.
That said, for letting people know what they can be use for free and what cannot and under what conditions. Creative Commons is a wonderful idea/approach/structure. I wish MSM sites would adopt its more rather than strictly going with "all rights reserved."