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Open Stacks: Pondering the Value of
Copyrighted Content in a World of Online Archives |
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20 December 2004 |
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Another week, another earth-shattering headline about the
machinations of Google. Or is it so earth-shattering?
Google's plan to scan materials without clear copyright in
major libraries is really just a continuation of their
original battle plan. What's more at question is how
publishers and aggregators have been asleep at the wheel in
thinking that copyright law would promise them growth - as
opposed to how it is protecting dwindling profits based on
old business models. Content value is exploding in
electronic form, much of it well beyond the purview of
traditional copyright protection. The effective use of
copyright is far from dead, but its users must adapt to an
era of getting to know its client base in far more
cooperative ways. |
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Tuesday
morning last week started like pretty much any other: I ambled
out of bed and puttered down to the end of the driveway to get
the paper, spread it out on the breakfast table and looked at
the lead column on the front page. What I saw was an
article trumpeting Google's project to scan content from
major academic and research libraries into searchable and
viewable form for access via the open Web and to supply it back
to the participating libraries. Google plans to monetize the
access with contextual ads supplied through its AdSense
program. The press thunder was deafening, as if someone had
just set torch to the Library of Alexandria. Yet this is no
real news: when the founders of Google set up shop some years
ago they stated that they wanted to offer access to all human
knowledge. And they meant, well, ALL human knowledge,
including what's on your humble desktop, now accessible via
their new local search appliance. It's just part of a greater
plan that they finally had the time and wherewithal with which
to execute, an "open stack" approach to library management
extended to the "n"th degree.
Google's scanning plan is a great
development for libraries, which are now empowered more than
ever to make their content available to the public in useful
forms and is great for the reading public. For publishers it's
neutral in the short run, since copyrighted materials are for
the most part not fair game in this effort, only content that
has always been in the public domain or has finally fallen in
to it. In the long run, though, it's a huge warning sign to
publishers and aggregators that have relied on the time-tested
tool of copyright law as the basis for their profitability -
not so much because of any direct threat to their domain but by
highlighting the changing fortunes of a domain of content value
whose time may have come and gone. As noted in our earlier
news analysis and in our
paper on
The New Aggregation, being able to make standard copies of
content available to the masses is a given to both major
publishing houses and to grannies and kids around the world.
Major troves of intellectual property were sitting around at
key libraries for centuries just waiting to be monetized and
not a single publisher or aggregator budged to put them to such
widespread use - in large part because there was no copyright
to enable them to be monetized in the ways in which
publishers were accustomed.
Put simply the models for success in
premium content are moving on, not waiting for those who'd
rather salt away another round of quarterly or semi-annual
returns on copyrighted chestnuts before breaking the bad news
to their boards that they've been shaking the wrong branch of
the money tree way too long. Copyright remains an important
factor in defining parameters for successful premium content
deployment, but it's becoming only one of an array of important
factors that needs to be balanced against the realities of
today's electronic publishing world. Here are a few thoughts to
ponder regarding copyrights in light of Google's moves:
- Copyright does not define content value, it merely
asserts the right to its value. While content of all
forms continues to proliferate in geometric proportions,
traditionally published and copyrighted materials are a
waning proportion of what the reading public considers to be
valuable content. The world is having a good time monetizing
content without worrying half as much about the concept of
copyright as they are about making sure that people find
their content to be useful stuff in a useful venue. In
focusing so heavily on protecting publishers' rights the
publishing industry has lost sight of many of the fundamental
value propositions for their content that are not
enhanced significantly by copyright laws.
- Monetizing archives is more about
enabling access than restricting access. It's common
practice these days to make exclusive access to copyrighted
publication archives a core feature in defining premium
subscription-based access to content. Yet, as Google
demonstrates, even with some fairly unique features there's
great benefit in considering how to allow access to content
archives in as many venues as possible. This need not mean
completely unrestricted access: rights management software
today allows many options for limiting access based on use,
time or user profile, and display venues such as DRM-enabled
eBook readers are well-equipped to manage these models. Using
content "lockdown" as the primary value management tool was
hurting libraries every bit as much as publishers, but now
that they've discovered the value of enabling archives for
wide audiences publishers are going the be hard-pressed to
look the other way for copyrighted materials.
- Content ecommerce is moving towards
using copyright to discover the value of content in different
venues. Services such as ValeoIP, Copyright Clearance
Center and Data Depth Corporation, once focused primarily on
managing article reprints, are focused increasingly on tools
and methods to increase copyright awareness in electronic
materials so that the concept of publishers' rights is
understood more clearly. This cooperative, enabling approach
to content ecommerce is increasing in importance as more
archives become more open to access, use and redistribution.
Copyright can be the starting point of a dialogue rather than
an impermeable barrier, a concept promoted by the
Creative Commons approach to
content licensing. When copyright becomes viewed as a right
to discuss a relationship on one's own terms rather than a
demand to avoid relationships, copyrighted content will find
its way into more useful venues more quickly - with
monetization to follow.
It's important to remember that prior to
Guttenberg the concept of copyright was not terribly important.
Copyright is a tool born of the industrial age that is
struggling to find its place in a post-industrial era.
Copyrighting has allowed intellectual property to flourish for
centuries, but as the factors supporting the flourishing of
intellectual property shift so must our approach to copyright
management. It's a useful tool that has not outgrown its
usefulness, but one whose core value is shifting rapidly in an
era of open access to content.
-
John Blossom
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