Google 'key word' ads undercut eBay

With AdWords, Google has slowly transformed into an online marketplace and competing against eBay, the Web's most valuable company. Google was the No. 5 Internet brand in the United States in March, with 44.7 million users, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. EBay was No. 6, with 36.4 million.


Revenue at closely held, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google may reach $800 million this year, said Richard Fetyko, an analyst at Kaufman Bros. LP in New York. Profit may be as much as $200 million, he said.
EBay's revenue, which consists of fees and advertising sales, rose 62 percent to $1.2 billion in 2002. Net income almost tripled to $250 million.
EBay's stock has risen 86 percent in the past 12 months, giving the San Jose, Calif., company a market value of $34.3 billion -- compared with $16.1 billion for Amazon.com Inc. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has risen 9.4 percent in the same period.
'Companies that have figured out how to make money on the Net are going to get bigger than any of us imagined,' said Tim Draper, managing director at venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Redwood City, Calif. "

Challenge Response Email Filtering- The Answer to the Spam Problem

The White House's recent announcement that the Exectutive Branch of the U.S. Government would be implementing a method of spam management known as "challenge/response" has certainly got our attention.

Unlike other anti-spam tools which rely on filtering and blocking emails, challenge/response is a system that relies on a confirmed response from an unrecognized sender in order to verify the email as legitimate. If the sender does not respond to the confirmation request, the email is not passed on to its intended recipient. Since most spam is generated by automatic software, the challenge/response system cuts down on a large portion of unwanted email. Here's how it works:

1) Robert signs up for a "challenge/response" email filtering program.

2) Sarah sends Robert an email.

3) Robert's challenge/response program puts Sarah's mail in a holding pattern and sends a confirmation email to Sarah asking her to prove that she is a real person by entering a code or replying to the email.

4) Sarah gets the email and confirms accordingly. Her original email (and all future ones) is then allowed to pass into Robert's email inbox.

5) All of Robert's friends, colleagues and other trusted senders can send Robert email once they reply to the challenge/response email action. Spamming bots, mass mailings with fake emails, and newsletters with a mail managing "reply to" address can not get into Robert's email.

Challenge/response may sound like a vaccine against all of the spammers who have taken over your emailbox and and cure for spam filters that may be improperly blocking your legitimate, important messages, but what about the newsletters that are sent by email bots that cannot reply? With challenge/response there is a solution for these situations as well. Challenge/response systems usually the ability for the user to white list newsletters and other email addresses that s/he automatically wants to let pass through without the challenge. (Hence our constant request/reminder to you readers to white list our WebAdvantage.net newsletter. Please don't forget!)

CHALLENGE/RESPONSE EMAIL FILTER PRODUCTS

spamarrest

Mailblocks

ChoiceMail

The Flip Side for Email Marketers

The challenge/response system really does not present a problem for the average person who may have to confirm a dozen or two challenge/response requests from the round of new emails for that day. But for an email newsletter publisher or marketer with a list of over 10,000 opt-in members, if even 10% of this list implements a challenge/response system, confirmation becomes virtually unmanageable and soon enough, their emails are never reaching their intended destination. That's really no better than having the email list blocked by a spam filtering system or blacklist!

This is all the more reason for email newsletter publishers and marketers to work on ongoing relations with their subscribers. Asking subscribers at the time of subscription sign-up and throughout the regular course of communications to automatically whitelist your emails is one of the very best ways to mitigate this problem.

Challenge/response firms are growing aware of this problem and working more and more with the email marketing community to come to a solution. Chip House, Director of Marketing at ExactTarget, a permission-based email marketing service provider, adds that "A number of challenge-response systems are on the market now, though the best ones allow the user to use an alternate email address for the email newsletters they want to receive. This feature allows legitimate marketers that only send to opt-in addresses to get through the challenge-response system, without having to manually respond to each challenge. Without this feature, users of this type of filtering may become frustrated with the fact that mail they want also gets trapped and often never makes it to them."

Problems Ahead

Besides the time it takes to manually reply to all of the challenge/response confirmation requests, this form of spam management poses some other problems.

* Dubious Confirmation Emails - How is the sender to know they're not being scammed? Would replying lead to simply sharing my address with another spammer or could my email be sent to a general public mailing list? These days, some folks won't even open any email from senders they don't recognize. Challenge/response companies are going to have to do an extremely good public relations job in order to get their names known and their emails as trusted as the original sender.

* Legalities - One challenge/response company, SpamArrest has been accused of a form of spamming because it places ads for its product in the challenge email. SpamArrest is also being sued by Hormel for trademark infringement for using the "Spam" name. Another challenge/response company, MailBlocks, filed suit against Earthlink in May 2003 for patent infringement after Earthlink implemented a similar system.

* Spam Blacklists & Other Spam Filter Companies - In theory challenge/response systems may sound like they'll work, but it's a greedy world out there and what's to stop a spam blacklist from blacklisting challenge/response emails because in theory, challenge/response companies are competitors of spam filtering and their system threatens the filter's very existence.

* Automated Sign-Ups - If a list owner uses an automated listbot program to manage its opt-in sign-ups, once new subscriber joins, the listbot will reply with an email asking the subscriber to click a link to confirm the subscription. But with a challenge/Response system, a challenge email is sent to the listbot before the user ever receives their confirmaton. Since the listbot isn't a person, it cannot know to reply to the challenge email and it does not. This means that the new subscription will never be activated because the confirmation never got sent out to the subscriber. It is lost in Internet limbo FOREVER!

* Ways to beat the system? - Spammers often "hijack" a person's name and email address, making it appear as though that person and not the spammer has sent the message. If a spammer sends an email using this method, will the challenge/response system still be able to detect the difference, or will it let the email pass through, as though the recipient is sending himself a message?

Some say that every rose has its thorn, and this is no different when it comes to the challenge/response system of email management. It is interesting to see a method that puts the onus on the sender, however, rather than the recipient.

RELATED WEB ADVANTAGE ARTICLES

Will Anti-Spam Laws Ever Be Legislated?

Spam Killers Impact Legitimate Marketers

Can That Spam!

Web marketing sells like teen spirit | CNET News.com: "Smart marketers will use the Web if they want to harness some of that teen spirit, according to a new study on media consumption among young people.

A survey by Yahoo and media services company Carat North America found that the Web trumps television, radio and books among young adults ages 13 to 24.

The study found that young adults spend more time on the Web than with any other media source and are not likely to be partial to one medium, as older generations are. Teenagers surveyed spent an average of 16.7 hours online per week, excluding e-mail. The next most popular medium was television, which teens turned to 13.6 hours per week, followed by radio, which took up 12 hours of a typical teen's week.

'The findings of our joint study confirm that the media landscape is shifting,' Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer of Yahoo, said in a statement. 'This generation is a revolutionary consumer group, actively in control and entrenched in their media experience, and their patterns will influence the future of media spending.'
The study surveyed more than 2,500 young adults through online interviews and focus groups. "

According to Yoo-hoo's Peter Shankman, this is no publicity stunt. The Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink Van was actually stolen on Thursday.

From an Internet marketing and public relations perspective, it is useful to see how tragedy can be turned into opportunity by adding a simple PR spin.

Yoo-hoo added an APB alert on their web site, printable "Have you seen the van?" flyers, and even a hefty reward of a two year supply of Yoo-hoo for the person lucky enough to find the missing chocolate chariot!

New York (July 18) - No, we're not kidding. And no, this isn't a PR stunt.

'Sweet Melissa,' the Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink Cargo van, was stolen late last night, from 57th St. and 9th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink is offering a reward of a two-year free supply of Yoo-hoo to anyone who finds her, no questions asked.

'She wasn't just a van, she was a member of the family,' said a sobbing Nathan Smithson, Undersecretary of Hoo-town, and Yoo-hoo designated driver. "That van has been with us across the country and back, more times than we can count. We've slept, ate, virtually lived in that van for the past two years. Thousands of gallons of Yoo-hoo have been dispersed to thirsty citizens across America from that van. Then, we go and spend one night in a hotel, and it's gone.'

Josh Harold, the second of the two Yoo-hoo drivers noted, ' She was a 96 Ford Econoline F150 with a 5.8 Liter V8, 16' Chrome American Racing wheels. She was black with red flames on the hood, Red Double Dogs on one side, the Yoo-hoo logo on the other side. She also has 'Sweet Melissa' written across the hood, and had a chrome skull on the back that had light-up brake light eyes.'

'She's our baby. We miss her,' he added.

Sweet Melissa's license plates are MML-55T, New Jersey registered.

Despite crime being down on all fronts in New York City, the occasional vehicle still gets stolen. This time, it happened to the coolest chocolate drink in the world. And we're not happy.

Yoo-hoo has set up a special hotline for information leading to the safe return of Sweet Melissa. If you have any information, or if you've seen her, call Yoo-hoo at 646-251-5926, or log on to www.drinkyoo-hoo.com and submit your tip there. If your tip directly results in the successful return of Sweet Melissa, we'll reward you with a two-year supply of Yoo-hoo Double Fudge.*

Switchboard To Integrate Relevant Content-Targeted Advertising Into Local Search With Google AdSense

Switchboard Incorporated, an online yellow pages portal, today announced an agreement with Google, developer of the largest performance-based search advertising program, that integrates content-targeted advertisements through the Google AdSense program into the Switchboard Yellow Pages.

As one of the pioneers of local search, Switchboard provides a highly optimized platform for integrating content-targeted advertising with local content. In addition, Switchboard will share in the revenue generated when their users click on Google advertisements. Using Switchboard’s enhanced merchant information - - rich data about a businesses’ product and service offerings - - Google will serve relevant content-targeted advertisements on yellow pages results and a variety of other pages throughout the popular online directory.

The alliance will provide Google’s advertisers with broad exposure to Switchboard’s more than 5 million unique online users executing local searches each month. “Content-targeted advertising has been typically targeted at editorial and informational content. With Google AdSense, we are moving content-targeted advertising to a new level of performance and relevance, because Switchboard’s users are ready-to-buy," said Dean Polnerow, president and founder of Switchboard Incorporated.

“Our extensive local merchant content and the local orientation of our users’ searches provides Google with a unique opportunity to target content-targeted advertising on our local business search results pages." "Switchboard’s extensive local content enables Google’s advertisers to reach a very targeted audience through relevant yellow pages results," said Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations for Google. “By adding Switchboard to our growing network of AdSense website publishers, we continue to validate the effectiveness and importance of content-targeted advertising as a medium to reach qualified customers.”

Google's other high profile AdSense partners include Blogger, AOL, Ask Jeeves, Earthlink, Amazon.com, and BurstMedia.

The Yahoo-Overture Acquisition: The What and The Why

EDITOR'S NOTE: Well Folks, it doesn't look like the consolidation is going to cease any time soon. Yahoo's announcement this week that they are planning to purchase Overture for $1.6 BILLION (that's a whole lot of zeros!) has made big headlines. With this acquisition, Yahoo will own no fewer than five of the major search engines.

What does all this consolidation mean to the industry, the marketplace and to search engine marketers in general? Does this spell doom for unpaid (a.k.a. "natural" or "organic") listings? We'll take a look and ask for your feedback as well. We're very eager for survey participants this week, so please take our survey!

THE YAHOO-OVERTURE ACQUISITION: THE WHAT & WHY

On Monday, July 14th, Yahoo announced its intent to purchase Overture for an estimated $1.6 billion price tag. With the ever-heated battle for search engine supremacy raging between Yahoo, Google and Microsoft's MSN Search, this news came as no surprise to industry analysts.

There's a lot of money at stake. According to a report by securities firm Piper Jaffray, the worldwide commercial search segment is estimated to grow from approximately $2 billion by year-end 2003 to approximately $5 billion by 2006, a compound annual growth rate of approximately 35 percent.

Yahoo's acquisition of Overture helps Yahoo to the last puzzle piece in its move to become self sufficient as a search engine machine. Yahoo kicked this plan into gear late last year when it purchased Inktomi Corp. on December 23, 2002. Inktomi is the power behind many search engine results. With a large database of indexed web pages, Inktomi generates search results using an algorithmic technology analogous to that of search king (and current Yahoo search result provider) Google. By purchasing Inktomi, Yahoo has cleared the way to divorcing itself from Google if it so chooses.

Inktomi was also attractive to Yahoo because it has a paid-inclusion program in which web site publishers must pay an annual fee to ensure inclusion in the Inktomi database. By acquiring Inktomi, Yahoo only adds to its own one-time fee paid inclusion program which does not assure inclusion but rather consideration for inclusion. Double the programs, double (or more) the revenues?

What Overture Brings To Yahoo

Yahoo's intended purchase of Overture will give the folks at Google a run for their money. Overture pioneered the field of paid search listing and will bring Yahoo 88,000+ advertisers. Overture claims to be "the leading provider of commercial search."Overture's reach overseas is formidable. There are different versions of Overture in almost every major overseas country, providing more solid revenue sources to Overture.

By buying Overture, Yahoo plans to "expand Pay-for-Performance search into vertical properties, such as shopping, travel, and yellow pages" while also "integrating contextual advertising throughout Yahoo!'s network, including properties such as in sports, real estate and autos." What this boils down to, Yahoo hopes, is more direct ad revenue.

Speaking of revenues, it only makes sense for Yahoo to buy out a company from which it already derived a large portion of ad revenue. Overture's syndicated paid search listings on Yahoo generated nearly a fifth of Yahoo's $282 million in revenues last quarter...and that was by just earning a portion of the per-click revenues. By buying Overture, Yahoo will now get to keep 100% of the per-click revenues generated on its own site, while also earning the revenues Overture has been generating from its other syndicated partnerships. Doesn't seem like such a bad deal from our perspective.

Overture's Properties, Partnerships and Reach

By acquiring Overture, Yahoo will also be buying two of the five largest search engines on the Internet, AltaVista and FASTSearch, which Overture had previously acquired. It was thought that Overture had acquired these search engines for testing new advertising methods or perhaps as security in case one of its big partners (e.g. Yahoo, MSN) terminated their agreements. We can only speculate whether Yahoo will sell off these search engines, kill them altogether, or let Overture continue with tinkering with them.

In addition to Yahoo & MSN, Overture also has very lucrative, long term agreements with some of the Internet's largest properties. Current U.S. partners include iWon, ESPN, Gator, InfoSpace, HotBot, CNet and Lycos.

Overture's international partners include:

* MSN in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and South
Korea

* South Korea's Daum Communications, HanaroDream and Dreamwiz

* AOL Europe, Yahoo Japan, Japan's InfoSeek

What the Competition is Doing

There is a constant jockeying of programs and assertions when it comes to the three major search engines. Google has fortified its existence as the leader in search by becoming a leader in paid listings as well. Its AdWords platform has been extremely successful, and its recently launched AdSense program has overnight increase exposure for its advertisers and revenues for itself.

Meanwhile, recently MSN has gotten into the ballgame by announcing that it has a new search engine in the works, a toolbar for that engine that will be automatically embedded in its new IE browsers, and rumors of acquisition plans for LookSmart and/or FindWhat to help it get up to par with paid inclusion and paid search listing programs. Some pundits are even wondering if Google is leaving money on the table by not having a paid inclusion program of its own and that it might plan to launch one soon.

Please follow the link for an updated list of other PPC Search Engine Listing Firms and what partnerships they have.

Shameless Plug

If you are new to paid search engine marketing, unsure of your true return on investment for the dollars you're spending with search engine pay-per-click programs, or are overwhelmed and looking to outsource, think WebAdvantage.net. We have years of experience in putting together high-performing search engine marketing campaigns.

Click here for more information or to contact us

RELATED WEBADVANTAGE.NET MARKETING TIPS

Changing Tides In the Search Engine Sea

Driving Search Engine Results - Does it Pay to Pay?

To Pay or Not to Pay

RELATED ARTICLES

NYTimes: Yahoo in Deal for Overture, an Internet Listing Service

Yahoo Tunes Up by Buying Overture

Yahoo Overture Combo Could Hurt MSN

Overture, Google, FindWhat and LookSmart Partners

If you've been which sites Overture, Google, FindWhat, and LookSmart paid search listings have partnered with, here is a listing.

Google provides paid results to:

Google

AOL

Ask Jeeves

Teoma

Google AdSense Advertising Network

Overture provides paid results to:

Yahoo

AltaVista

MSN

Lycos

AllTheWeb

Gator

Overture's Content Match Publishers

FindWhat provides paid results to:

UCmore.com

CNet's Search.com

Infospace

NBCI

Mamma

Metacrawler

Excite.com

LookSmart LookListings provide paid inclusion within:

MSN

Lycos

About.com

Infospace

Internet Marketing and Blogs- Creating and Marketing the Blog

In July 2001, we published an article about blogging written by Olivier Travers who defined blogs as, "live online journals -- frequently updated web sites where commentary and links are sorted in chronological order, starting from the most recent entries. Most belong to a community of interest, where comments and cross-links fly from site to site." Today's blogging tools make web publishing almost as easy as word processing, so the barrier to entry is far more reduced. If someone wanted to blog, there would be no reason they couldn't. The real crux of blogging is finding the time to do it.

Creating a Blog

This same 2001 article covered the how-to's of creating a blog but since that was a long time ago and since new solutions have been introduced, here's a quick refresher.

Getting a simple blog up and running is a very easy process. Blogger, now owned by Google, is probably the easiest choice. It takes about 5 minutes to register, choose a blogging template, and get your first entry published. Other free blogging solutions include TongueWag, journalspace, and Xanga.com. Paid blog hosting services include Salon.com's co-branded blogs and the Blogging Network.

If you want to create a privately owned blog there are also various software solutions including MovableType and Greymatter. Most of the blogging software firms offer basic open sourced (free) blog solutions which can then be customized and designed to web site specifications by a programmer or through paid installation.

Blogs and Search Engines Rankings

Currently, blogs tend to get great rankings in search engines. Why? Content and linking.

Unlike regular business sites, by their very nature blogs are based on updated information which makes them extremely rich in content. Many blogs are updated several times a day with new articles, thoughts and information. After months or even weeks of inception, a blog can be seen as a wealth of topical knowledge, a quality that search engines such as Google cherish.

Blogs also contain a wealth of links. Since bloggers constantly look ways to keep their blogs updated, they are likely to provide links rather than create solely create all their content themselves. Many bloggers are "old school" Internet believers who have not forgotten that links from site-to-site helped to found the Internet and are not as worried about loosing visitors to other sites. Therefore, making a link request of a blogger is likely to yield a much better response than a link request of a regular web site. And such density of linking can lead to high search engine rankings.

Linking and content are not the only reasons owning a blog feels like time traveling back to 1995. There is much about blogging that's still actually fast and free such as the multiple blog search engines and directories that actually have free submittals and 48 hour indexing! An added benefit is that most of these directories have high search engine rankings so getting them to link to your blog will only help the search engine rankings of your own blog.

Submitting your Blogs

The first place that you should submit your blog to is Google. It would not hurt either to do some free submittals to AltaVista and FAST Search. Then, submit your blog to the top blog search engines and directories. We have provided a list of these directories on our site.

LIST OF BLOG SEARCH ENGINES & DIRECTORIES:

DayPop

BlogSearchEngine

BlogHop

Blogarama

BlogWise

Revenue for your Blogs

Once you start getting some steady traffic to your blog, you can potentially start to monetize that traffic. Consider implementing the new Google AdSense program (informational link provided below), though since Google owns Blogger it will not grant AdSense accounts for free Blogger users. Upgrading from a free to professional account grants you the ability to run Google AdSense on your blog and only costs $15 annually. The revenue you generate should well cover the cost of the upgrade.

Another option for running advertising on your blog is Blogads. According to their site, "Blogads are an expression of the grassroots intellectual economy. Blogads serve a far more passionate audience than is served by AOL Time Warner, Google, or the average Daily Bugle."

Here's how BlogAds works. Blog owners run a BlogAds box on their site which includes advertising information for their blog. The ad pricing is determined by the blog owner and the advertisement is purchased via BlogAds.com for time intervals from one week to a year. BlogAds.com keeps an updated list of the most popular blogs and advertising pricing on their site. Top click thru percentages have been running from 2.5% to 4%.

Blogs and Public Relations

Blogs have brought a whole new dimension to the media relations world. News and industry-specific blogs have become the "speaker's corner" for the online community. Bloggers and blog readers are now seen as opinion leaders and early adopters. The blog is an indispensible component of today's online public relations campaigns.

What does this mean to a blogmaster? You're blog may be the way for PR professionals to reach their target public as an alternative to the mass media. Make it easy for PR professionals to contact you by putting a "send news" link where these important people can find it. See our special site section for a list of places you can announce your blog to PR communities.

For a list of these PR communities, please see Part II of this tip; Blogging Tools, Marketing Blogs, and Blog Public Relations

Blogging Tools

By using reader feedback, blog forwarding (forwarding blogs to other users' emails) and ranking tools on your blog, it will keep users interested and help market your blog virally.

For a list of blogging tools, please see Part II of this tip; Blogging Tools, Marketing Blogs, and Blog Public Relations.

Internet Marketing Blogs

Here's a list of some of the hottest blogs on Internet Marketing.

Two years ago we brought you information about blogging and now blogs are huge. A few weeks ago, we brought you information about RSS feeds, and we predict they too will significantly change the way we receive our information in future. Keep reading our newsletter, and who knows what other kinds of pearls of wisdom you'll receive. Pass it along!

RELATED WEBADVANTAGE.NET ARTICLES

Blogging -- Funny Name, Great for Online Marketing

RSS is the instant creation of a news feed that other sites can pick up and publish. Blogging is the instant creation of news. In some instances, these two go hand in hand. If you liked this blogging article, you should also find our past tips on RSS informative.

RSS News Feed Creation & Syndication

RSS News Feed Creation & Syndication- Part 2

Google Announces AdSense Program for Small Sites

Google's Toolbar 2.0 Adds Pop Up Stopper and Blogging Tool

Google just enhanced their toolbar with a pop up blocker with the following:

* Pop up Blocker: Blocks pop up advertising and lets you accept certain ads
* AutoFill: Automatically fill in a form with the click of a button, like Gator
* BlogThis: Create a weblog post pointing to the page you are visiting *WOW*

BlogThis is used to automatically upload links to your Blogger page (if you use blogger) so you can post simply in a small pop up window. This is an excellent blogging tool and a fabulous way for Google to promote their new Blogger acquisition!

And no.... Google's Pop up blocker does not block the BlogThis pop up! :)
Install the Google Toolbar

Internet Marketing Tips from WebAdvantage.net

Digital Rights Management - Protecting Your Content, Part Two

EDITOR'S NOTE: In our last issue, we discussed technical ways to
protect your content and "Digital Rights Management." In this
week's newsletter, we look the kinds of legal recourse you have.

But before we get into the newsletter, we have an important
announcement to make: we soon will be offering our newsletter in
an HTML format. Our last newsletter survey informed us that
there are those of you who would prefer to receive our newsletter
in its current text-only format, so we will accommodate you, too.
Before sending out our first HTML issue, we will send you out a
text-only notice with instructions so that subscribers who want
to stay as text-only recipients will be able to request their
preference. Please note: everyone who is capable of receiving
HTML email will at least receive our inaugural HTML issue.

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT - PROTECTING YOUR CONTENT, PART TWO


We couldn't be more timely with the topic of this week's Part Two
newsletter. The Copyright Society of the USA has deemed March
9 - 15th, "Copyright Awareness Week." While Copyright Awareness
Week was developed primarily to teach schools the importance and
basics of copyrights, the fact that it exists proves the need to
talk about this subject.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),
"Last year marked a milestone in the history of copyright law."
In March 2002, the WIPO Copyright Treaty entered into force. The
treaty is one of two that "set out the legal framework to
safeguard the interests of creators in cyberspace and open new
horizons for composers, artists, writers and others to use the
Internet with confidence to create, distribute and control the use
of their works within the digital environment." 35 countries have
ratified the treaty.

The existing legal means by which to protect your intellectual
property include trademarks (for logos), patents (for inventions)
and copyrights (for written work.) As we mentioned in our last
issue, theoretically, as soon as you write your own content, it's
protected by copyright law. Copyright laws, however, are not
global while the Internet is, and enforcing your rights and
proving that you were the originator can be difficult. The trick
from days of old was to take an original version of a document,
seal it in an envelope, and send it back to yourself through
registered mail. Save this sealed envelope untouched until a
time you would need to prove ownership of the contents.

These days, things are not so simple.


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One approach to solving the problem with a legal fix is Creative
Commons. Developed by a Stamford law professor and his
academic colleagues, Creative Commons "developed a Web
application that helps people dedicate their creative works to
the public domain -- or retain their copyright while licensing
[these works] as free for certain uses, on certain conditions.
Creative Commons' Web application issues free "commons," or
"flexible intellectual property licenses." Currently, Creative
Commons offers 11 different types of licenses which are
differentiated by the terms of use the license holder requires.

These licenses can be used by artists, writers and programmers to
set permission limits for the outside use of their works.
Granting use of your work under a Creative Commons license does
not mean giving up your copyright. It just means you're offering
some of your rights to any taker, and only on certain conditions.

For example, you could obtain a Creative Commons license for an
article you've written or an eBook you've created and the
license would actually stipulate whether or not you would allow
it to be altered, what acknowledgements you'd expect, and/or
what charges should be paid if someone uses it.

Legally-enforceable IP license templates are available online and
they're free. Creative Commons issues your license expressed in
three forms: a "commons deed" (a plain-language summary), a
"legal code" (including all of the fine print you need to stand
up in court), and a "digital code" (a machine-readable code for
search engines and other applications to identify your work by
its terms of use). There's also a Creative Commons "Some Rights
Reserved" button for your web site.


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Another route for legal content protection is The Copyright
Clearance Center (CCC). Founded in 1978 "to facilitate
compliance with U.S. copyright law, CCC provides licensing
systems for the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted
materials in print and electronic formats throughout the world."

For authors, CCC offers free "Rightsholder Services." CCC's
Rightsholder Authorizations Agreement lets you control your
content and assign a per-page cost of use. CCC collects and
sends you your royalty checks and charges you a nominal service
fee for managing your copyrighted material. CCC will also
charge you a nominal listing fee if you register but do not
receive any royalty checks. CCC also has a program for
publishers. The link to the CCC is provided below.

Registering with the Copyright Clearance Center does not mean
you are registering a copyright for your work, something you do
not need to do but which can provide you with some legal benefits.
U.S. copyright filing takes place through the U.S. Copyright
Office.

Through the Internet, the public has been able to share ideas,
thoughts, and information. While strict laws could help protect
authors' and publishers' rights, they may also impede the true
power of the 'Net. Anyone sharing information online should take
the precautions s/he deems necessary, but nor can everyone
benefit from the same protection solution. Choose yours,
technical, legal or both, according to your needs and goals.


Related WebAdvantage.net articles:
http://www.webadvantage.net/tip_archive.cfm?tip_id=225&&a=1

Related Links:

Copyright Awareness Week
http://www.csusa.org/html/events/CAW2003.html

World Intellectual Property Organization
http://www.wipo.int/clea/docs/en/wo/wo033en.htm

Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org

Copyright Clearance Center
http://copyright.com

US Copyright Office
http://www.loc.gov/copyright

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA)
http://www.iipa.com