Publishers See a Way to Track Their Content Across the Net

NY times ^ | 11-5-07 | RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

[stan_sipple]

Copyrighted work like a news article or a picture can hop between Web sites as easily as a cut-and-paste command. But more than ever, as that material finds new audiences, the original sources might not get the direct financial benefit — in fact, they might have little idea where their work has spread.

A young company called Attributor says it has an answer, and a number of big publishers of copyrighted material say Attributor just might be right.

The company has developed software that identifies an electronic “fingerprint” for a particular piece of material — an article, a picture, a video. Then it hunts down any place across the Web where a significant chunk of that work has been copied, with or without permission.

When the use is unauthorized, Attributor’s software can automatically send a message to the site’s operators, demanding a link back to the original publisher’s site, a share of revenue from any ads on the page, or a halt to the copying

[BOBTHENAILER]

Copyrighted work like a news article or a picture can hop between Web sites as easily as a cut-and-paste command. But more than ever, as that material finds new audiences, the original sources might not get the direct financial benefit

When a NYTimes article is spread all over the web, IT IS FOR RIDICULE ONLY, NO COMMERCIAL INTENT

[stan_sipple]

prob a way to reduce traffic to right sites

[TexGuy]

... where a significant chunk of that work has been copied ...

Define 'significant' ... Who will be the first to copyright a single prepositional phrase? I call dibbs on the words 'a' and 'the'!!

[KarlInOhio]

Will Attributor be able to tell the difference between a New York Times story and a DNC press release?

[BOBTHENAILER]

prob a way to reduce traffic to right sites

yeah, no kidding. Drowning mediots grasping at straws.

[stan_sipple]

Or the screenplay from Al Gore or Michael Moore’s latest trash pic?

[KarlInOhio]

Also it is a way for the press to control the text. If I see an outrageous article and post it here at FR, it is frozen as published. If I can only post a link, then the publisher has the capability to revise or even eliminate the article if it becomes politically inconvenient.

Just imagine how much harder the Rathergate incident would have been if CBS hadn't put the forged letters on their website. If they had only put retyped text on the TV screen and never published the actual letters Buckhead and TankerKC could never have looked at the font and the memo format to determine that it didn't match with the available fonts or the way the Texas Air National Guard would have written a memo. Even if we didn't believe them, it would have been limited to some griping on a right-wing site instead of a national firestorm.

[stan_sipple]

you can use internet archive unless the website owner puts a bug to disable it!

[listenhillary]

That would be useful.

You could target the media outlets that aren’t toeing the line by publishing the DNC daily spew.