RE: Risks of insufficient concept design

[Howard Fram <fram@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew:

>I do not claim to understand the product fully, but my contention is
>that the entire concept on which it is based runs counter to the
>strengths of the online medium.

Does this mean then that people who have copyrighted material are better 
off not placing that material online?  Because if what your saying, that 
openness and linking is the most important thing, I contend that people who 
have copyrighted material will decide not to place their information 
online.  This fear, whether founded or not, IMHO, runs counter to the 
strengths of the online medium.

>As far as I am aware thre is curently little or no legal precedent to 
clarify under >what circumstances images have been copied legally and under 
what >circumstances they have been copied illegally.

Correct.  And that is where I think products like SiteShield help. 
 Unfortunately, it will ultimately be for courts to decide, by why 
shouldn't sites be given the opportunity to protect their content?  If they 
choose to pursue legal battles with someone who may be profiting in 
whatever manner from their content, they would at least be able to contend 
that they've made an attempt to protect the content.  As it stands now, I 
don't think they would have much chance because of the way caching works.

>However, if you prevent these users from making a link to your
>original content, you immediately lose the ability to track new uses of
>your content.

Don't misunderstand what we're trying to do here - we don't prevent links 
(nor would we want to), but rather the *unauthorized* use or referencing of 
content.  It's funny how people seem to misinterpret that.  If sites want 
to grant permission, not a problem.  And while the use of an image could 
also be a link to the original site, it seems most prevalent that people 
who reference images don't make them link back and to top it off, don't 
give credit to the original author.

Another point to make about SiteShield is that if sites want to use it they 
can, but they don't have to.  And they don't have to protect their entire 
site, maybe just one or two key images.

>Finally, I did not see a technical explanation of the security measures 
which >would allow independent scrutiny.  Security by obscurity is of 
little use.

Point taken.  BTW, I'll be reading Xanadu information today to gain a 
better understanding of your approach to copyright issues.

Regards,

Howard