An Attribution App and Global Database?
Thinking out loud here. In the open space between aggregation and formal registration.
Is there already such a thing? Specifically for internet and web publishing, where formal copyright is not appropriate? If not, it can’t go on my future projects list (as that is already too long), but I’d add part time input and/or assistance to get one going.
What I am picturing is a sort of reverse RSS subscription to a public record, where the feed address is listed and the content cached. No anonymous subscriptions. Call it something like ‘For the Record’.
Attribution and copyright issues are important not only to traditional and professional publishers, but also to many freelance and aspiring writers and other content creators. Many a starving writer used to rely on the old standby process of sending his/her work to themselves via registered mail.
There are also internet and web publishers who aren’t professionals, but who still care about whether their words are misused or abused or quoted out of context.
Those who publish on the web for purely personal and social reasons aren’t the subscriber base, but many or most of them are also the readers.
Then there is linkage. I’ve occasionally found links to my own content that never did show up on Technorati, or on search engines. The unseen links area is not something that would be directly addressed by an attribution database, but would be much easier to address based on it.
Speaking of secondary applications, here’s the hidden ’social web’ nugget. The subscriber base would divide naturally into professional publishers, academia including scholars, institutions and students, freelance publishers, and amateur. A bit of further categorization could organize the data into forms that are relationally compilable, whether by topic, date, subscriber category, or whatever else you decided to build into an advanced search. Mind you a simple button widget for all current web posts and conversations on the same topic sounds awfully attractive by itself.
What do you think?
Would this be an ISOC, EFF, Creative Commons type project?
An opensource prototype by someone creative?
A traditional publishing industry initiative?
A combination private enterprise and non-profit paid subscription model? (say $10 per year for amateur publishers and a variety of schedules for businesses, groups, institutions, etc.)
Certainly the potential congruence (depending on how the db is set up) with relational search development is interesting, but the inherent conflict between private competition in search and the objective nature of the ‘record’ is problematic, unless a search developer was only one funder/founder of the primary information depository.
Quite a mix of public and private interests.
Comments? Ideas?
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:39 am
This is interesting. I’m fairly new to blogging and all these writing online stuff and truth is, I’m still trying to comprehend what rss feed means and what it can do for me. But I’m very conscious about plagiarism. I don’t want to be accused as a pirate.
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:34 am
Hi eagerblogger, an rss feed is a format through which any chunks of information specified can be sent regularly to anyone who subscribes to it. If you have dozens of online news sources and blogs that you read and enjoy, you put the ‘address’ of their feeds into a feedreader, and can scan all the titles of new entries/updates whenever you like.
You have a blogger atom feed at the bottom of your page …putting a subscribe button or link up on the sidebar near the top would make it easier for your friends to subscribe and automatically see whenever you post.
Plagiarism isn’t something you need to worry about unless you’re either doing it or having it done to you.
It’s an issue of importance to professional writers, publishers, and scholars, but usually less so to personal bloggers.
Vera
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:07 am
Hi Vera, just saw your post on TechCrunch and came over to your blog and am reading through it and liking what I read.
This is an important not just for bloggers and professional writers but for everyone. We just launched www.storyofmylife.com and our lawyers initially thought it would be a good idea to have in the Terms a royalty fee for content that made money from the site. This was a PR fiasco and we quickly removed it (it actually was created when our site originally was going in a different direction). Anyway this is something on a large scale that’s still kind of winding its way thru US courts as to ownership and responsibility. Putting ownership and responsibility into the hands of ther user, the community at large, or the company who’s posting the medium (tools) for others to publish is all still quite murky.
Anyway glad I found your blog and I’ll keep reading. If you’d ever like to write your Story, I’ll be it would be a fascinating one(!) come on over.
Take care,
Antje
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:51 am
Hi Antje,
Welcome. I’m really glad you came by. It sent me to storyofmylife.com. Wow! This is one of the most exciting things I’ve seen online in a while. I’ll definitely head back and email also. Writing my story, well, that would take a few years, although a few hundred shorts could eventually happen.
The ownership and reaponsibility issue *is* important on many levels. I think it could be the most important thing for citizens anywhere to at least begin to grasp, going far beyond the concepts of copyright, which are typically perceived as being lawyerly and ‘big bad’ business things. One of the difficulties, of course, is that it is all an abstraction to most people. Looking at it from the powerful connection that your foundation has the potential of making, though …that could very well be a seminal bridge. I’m trying hard not to turn this comment into one of my lengthier posts.
Vera
August 6th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Hi Vera, I saw you joined; I can’t wait until you have some free time (haha) to write, as your story (from reading your blog - just spent the last hour here!) would be amazing.
My boss was talking at a conference for youths in technology and asked how many had a myspace page (all of them) and how many of them had ever thought stuff they put there now, which is much harder to get rid of online than they think, might affect what they want/do later? They were somewhat taken aback.
But we turned the conversation the other direction and said they could use the web to create a good story / cache of information beginning now. And that seemed to turn the lightbulb on. They’ll put ANYthing online though. Different generations for sure….. will be interesting to see the world in 10-20 years on this.
Best,
Antje
August 6th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Hi Antje,
I did join, and yes there’s never enough time. I’d wanted to email you the first time you posted here, but didn’t find you on the site. It has been on my mind to do a post on stories. It is a different subject from the global database that could be used for attribution thought, though.
We will see it in 10-20 years, won’t we?
Vera