Attribute is forming the Fair Syndication Network, a grouping of
publishers who will use Attribute's content-tracking technology to
identify websites which use whole chunks of other people's material
in order to attract advertising. The Network will then try to
divert advertising money from those sites to the creators of the
content.
"What if you received a portion of the ad revenue from the
reusing party whenever a full copy of your content is found on
another site?" says Attribute's description of the Fair Syndication
Network. "Technology now exists that can identify your content
wherever it is monetized and ensure that you get your fair share
from the ad networks serving the ads."
To ensure that creators get their 'fair share', though, the
Network will have to persuade advertising networks to divert money
from website owners to the original creators of content.
The system is designed to divert money to content creators from
spam blogs, websites which simply reproduce masses of content in
full in a bid to appear like news sites and attract pay per click
advertising from the major ad networks, such as Yahoo!'s or
Google's.
Technology news publisher Techcrunch was invited to a
demonstration of the system and said that Attribute surveyed such
sites and found that 94% of the sites were served ads by one of the
three biggest networks: Yahoo!, DoubleClick and AdSense. Google
acquired DoubleClick in 2008 and AdSense is Google's advertising
programme for publishers.
The Network aims to convince those three networks that when ad
money is earned by sites that take content without permission, some
of that money should be diverted to content creators.
Attribute chief executive told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ),
though, that though it is in discussions with major ad networks,
none has yet signed up. He told the paper that he believed the US's
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) created ad network
liability when networks were informed that sites breached copyright
law.
One problem automated systems face is that copyrighted material
can be legally used under exceptions to copyright laws, such as
those for news reporting. The Attribute system would only register
uses of material above a certain word limit and would ignore
excerpts within quotation marks to try to take account of 'fair
use' exceptions.
The biggest content producer that has signed up to the Network
is news agency Reuters.
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