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By Martin Belam
 The networked nature of the Internet has changed a great deal in the ways that we share and communicate information between people and between businesses. We have moved from a world with traditional gatekeepers of information: publishers, printers, newspapers, libraries and bookstores. These no longer have a solitary grip on distribution channels. Whilst it seems that more and more information is being made available at a lower cost than ever before, it also means that it is harder for authors, journalists and performers to retain control over the use and re-use of their content.
With recent economic conditions putting extreme pressures on businesses in all markets, the last couple of years have seen several initiatives around digital copyright. One of these is ACAP, a protocol to allow machines to automatically understand the terms and conditions of content re-use over the Internet. I recently had an opportunity to talk to ACAP Project Director, Mark Bide.
Interview with Mark Bide, ACAP Project Director
Martin Belam: It is nearly 18 months since the public launch of ACAP. What is the state of play now?
Mark Bide: v1.0 of ACAP was launched in New York in November 2007. Since then, it has been implemented on over 800 websites, including the Wall Street Journal, Politiken, Times Online, L'Expresso, Guardian, Penguin and Random House, in 43 countries worldwide. However, I would be the first to acknowledge that these implementations are, to a significant extent, symbolic. While publishers may be implementing ACAP, the major aggregators - and particularly the major search engines - are not. At least, not yet. We always recognised that there would be a considerable delay between the development of the first version of the specification and its widespread acceptance and implementation.
While technical work has been continuing, our greatest efforts have been in getting across what is a relatively simple and straightforward marketing message.
We need copyright on the network, just as we need copyright in the physical world. Nothing changes in this respect. But at the same time, we need to recognise that the tools to make copyright functional on the network have been lacking. ‘The answer to the machine lies in the machine.' We need solutions to the management of copyright on the network which go with the grain rather than attempt to cut across it. ACAP is a critical part of the solution to the problem of allowing copyright owners to have choice about the way in which their content is re-used by third parties, particularly in a business-to-business context. Copyright owners have the right to choose who is going to make money from their content and on what terms.
We have found legislators and regulators to be very open to this argument, not least because they understand the value of the creative industries to all economies, and how critical a role they play in society as a whole. This is not something to be given up simply because of specious claims that 'the Internet doesn't work like that'.
Martin Belam: There has been a lot of focus on whether Internet search engines have or haven't adopted ACAP standards. However, there is also huge potential for the model to play a key role in B2B communications and publishing, isn't there?
Mark Bide: The initial focus on the search engines was inevitable, in view of their overwhelming market dominance on the internet (and the extraordinary power that this gives to them). But of course you are right that they are the beginning rather than the end of ACAP. The initial implementation of ACAP, using the Robots Exclusion Protocol, was appropriate only to the relationship with the search engines (and was undertaken at their insistence). We are now beginning to think actively about alternative implementations for other applications.
Martin Belam: You've had some success with making it easier for users to adopt the ACAP model and apply the right code to their content?
Mark Bide: From the outset, we have provided a small application that makes it easy for publishers to implement ACAP on their websites - but in a very simple way. Most of the implementations that have been undertaken by publishers follow this very simple approach.
Once ACAP has been accepted as the way in which publishers (of all shapes and sizes) can express their permissions in a machine-readable form on the internet, the approach to implementation will need to change. It becomes (like so much else) a part of metadata management, and a part of the workflow of content creation. Some of the very largest content management system providers to the newspaper industry have already announced support for ACAP - we would expect this support to become widespread as the requirement grows.
Martin Belam: There is a view that suggests that Creative Commons stands for a radical copyright-free new world, whilst ACAP is the last throw of the dice for an old-fashioned publishing model. In truth, the two have a lot more in common don't they?
Mark Bide: Absolutely. Creative Commons is just as dependent on copyright as is ACAP.
ACAP is one of a group of standards developments which have arisen from the recognition of the need to reassert copyright on the network. Creative Commons is primarily interested in providing standardised licences that can be used by individual creators who want to be able to licence their own creations for re-use by others, but who are not seeking commercial reward.
ACAP and the other initiatives (including the PLUS Coalition's work on the licensing of photographs and other images; and EDItEUR's development of ONIX-PL for the communication of licences between publishers and libraries) are more commercial in intent. But these efforts are complementary, not competitive. ACAP and Creative Commons have had friendly and productive conversations about possible areas of collaboration.
Martin Belam: If people want to take part in the debate around ACAP, where is the best place for them to start?
Mark Bide: If you mean, where is the best place for them to understand ACAP, then I guess I would point them to our website (www.the-acap.org) where there is a lot information and an FAQ section which is regularly updated. If they are interested in becoming members of ACAP, they should contact me.
There is a sporadic but lively debate which takes place in the blogosphere about ACAP, which anyone can join in (and in which I join myself from time-to-time). Much of this debate is rather uninformed, but some of it is very intelligent and thoughtful; sounds a lot like the blogosphere in general. There are certainly those who oppose ACAP because they are opposed to any attempt to regulate online culture. I am sure the same types of voices have been heard on every frontier as civilisation reaches out to bring things under proper control. No doubt, something is lost in the process; but society itself has a great deal to gain.
'Copyright in the Digital Age' - SIIA Issue Briefing by Martin Belam
In looking at how the industry is planning to deal with this situation, as well as speaking to Mark Bide, I also attended an issue briefing on 'Copyright in the Digital Age' hosted by the Software & Information Industry Association in London. On the panel were Andrew Hughes from the Newspaper Licensing Agency, Dominic Young from News International and Ammy Vogtlander from BlueInsights.
The afternoon featured a wide-ranging discussion, but all the parties in the room seem to have accepted that, as publishers, they can't simply 'put the genie back into the bottle'. Internet distribution of digital content is a reality, and the technological changes need to be seen as both a way of generating business advantage, as well as being a threat to some revenue streams.
Dominic Young made the point that it is very strange to see newspapers and news organisations having to shed jobs and close down publications, just at the moment when they have a larger audience than ever before. This, he said, wasn't the way that copyright was meant to work. He argued that ACAP would form part of a 'suite of solutions' offered by the industry. Like many people, he also cited Apple's iTunes as an example of how providing an easy to use copyright compliant service for the audience deterred them from copyright infringing activities.
Andrew Hughes takes a very pragmatic view of technological advances. Indeed, he argued that if it hadn't been for the development of the photocopier as a means of sharing newspaper content, then the NLA wouldn't even exist. They act as a collecting agency on behalf of British newspapers, and now 90% of the digital distribution of newspaper clippings is done via them, with the publishers able to set their own terms and conditions for re-use.
There seems to be many areas where work needs to be done to better enable sharing and use of content amongst end consumers. Someone pointed out from the floor that in many ways publishers had been their own worst enemy, with a bewildering array of delivery mechanisms and pricing systems for content. From the panel, Ammy Vogtlander also outlined some of the obstacles her company faced in building systems to allow users to share and recommend content amongst themselves. In next month's FUMSI, she'll be writing about how this issue affects her business, BlueInsights in Netherlands.
Anne Joseph from Reed Elsevier also made a pertinent point from the floor. She believed that the 'c' symbol that publishers put in their content shouldn't just stand for 'copyright', but should stand for 'choice'. Creators should have the choice on whether to try and monetise their work, and publishers should have a choice on how to distribute that work. As Mark Bide puts it:
'This is really about re-establishing proper respect for copyright on the network. I am not here talking about consumers. I am talking about businesses. Businesses, ranging from the very large to the very small, which make money by exploiting other people's content without permission. The network has been a frontier, and like many frontiers it has developed in a lawless way. There is now increasing awareness that this lawlessness needs to come to an end. Copyright is only one part of the story when it comes to the re-establishment of civil society on the network, but it is an important part of it. As a more copyright aware and copyright compliant culture develops on the internet, the diversity of content distribution models can flourish.'
By Martin Belam
Martin Belam is Information Architect for guardian.co.uk. Before
joining The Guardian, he worked as an Internet Consultant with
organisations like the BBC, Sony, Vodafone and the Science Museum. He
is contributing editor for FUMSI magazine, and blogs about information
architecture and the media at currybet.net.
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