This week, Attributor, with support from the Fair Syndication Consortium, is taking the first steps in the pursuit of a new model for online content syndication. The model is one in which content creators have the option to be compensated for their content wherever it appears on the Internet by sharing in the advertising revenue generated by the syndication. One can think of this as attempting to do for syndication what AdSense did for advertising.

From day one, we’ve known that this is a complex issue with numerous players, perspectives, interests, and touch points in the content ecosystem, though we remain hopeful a solution that meets the needs of all parties is not only possible, but will provide positive benefits to the entire ecosystem.

We’re motivated by the prospect of a thriving online content economy in which content is shared openly and spread freely, with an infrastructure that supports and fairly compensates content owners and creators.

We want to be completely clear: this model is NOT about content removal. The new model IS about the economics of online content. Our initiative focuses on changing the economic benefits of using unlicensed content and doing so in a manner that strives to do as much as possible to seek an acceptable outcome before removing the content or changing the online experience for consumers. In our view, this is a CRITICAL and watershed point that underscores the very underpinnings of the guidelines and recommendations put forth by the Fair Syndication Consortium. This is about the economy of content and the ads that support it, not the content itself. We trust this is abundantly clear.

With this mission in mind, we want to share the details of this initiative, more specifically about traffic diversion and ad removal actions.

Attributor’s technology, coupled with a team of trained human reviewers, will identify full-copy reuses of unlicensed content for its publishing customers. A “full copy” is any page that contains more than 80% of the original article AND at least 125 words. This definition of full copy was defined collectively by the input of the Fair Syndication Consortium and is intentionally designed to be free of any legitimate fair use claims.

Additionally, only reusing sites with consistent, high frequency instances of full-copy reuse will be party to a graduated response outlined in the Fair Syndication Guidelines, starting with two initial notices.

It should be clear that the combination of a strict definition of full copy reuse along with a pattern of systematic reuse will impact sploggers first and foremost.

This will not impact aggregators, folks who provide original content around portions of other’s work, educational reuse, or any other form of fair use.

The first notice will let a reusing party know that multiple instances of full-copy, unlicensed content reuse has been found on their site and asks whether they have permission to use the articles in question or if they would like to enter into a discussion about fair compensation for syndicating the content. The goal here is to facilitate  a discussion and presume that an outcome agreeable for both parties can be achieved.

If for some reason a response from the reusing site is not received within 10 business days, a second notice will be sent alerting the reusing party that the pages – and only the pages with full copies of the reused content – will be removed from the major search engines and any advertisements on the reusing page will be withdrawn. The goal of this step is to further encourage a discussion and agreeable outcome between the reusing party and the content producer.

We feel that assuming a workable outcome is possible is a better alternative than jumping immediately into litigation as other companies and industries have done in the past.

As these notices are sent, we aim to provide accurate results and be transparent in our processes. We recognize that we are still in the early days of the online content economy and we hope to encourage a broader discussion about the industry and potential solutions. Some of this discussion has already started via Ken Doctor and Alan Mutter.

If you have questions or comments about our solution, philosophy or about the traffic diversion and ad removal process, please contact us at fairshare(at)attributor(dot)com.

We enter the new decade with an ongoing sense of enthusiasm about our publishing customers and the potential for their industry. We consider it great validation and acknowledgment of our work at Attributor, including the Fair Syndication Consortium’s progress towards an ad-supported syndication platform, that Outsell, a leading research and advisory firm focused on the publishing and information industries, recently named Attributor to its ’30 to Watch’ list in their report, “Information Industry Outlook 2010: A New Dawn, New Day, New Decade.”The report highlights companies who they believe will have an important impact on the publishing- and information-provider community.

We couldn’t agree more with Outsell’s perspective about a new year and new opportunities, as stated in their report: “Those who fly and grow are those who prepared for a new dawn, a new day and new decade. Those who have not kept up will continue to face pressures and a proverbial sunset – more challenge, and in some cases demise.”

As Outsell explains, success in the new decade will depend on creating and fostering positive, successful and engaging experiences. We look forward to working with our customers to foster this perspective and build on the successes of 2009.

The book piracy problem has fascinated us going back to our tracking of the Harry Potter spoiler two years ago.   Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of the Attributor book tracking service that takes advantage of our industry-leading, web-wide crawling capabilities and new technology to detect .pdf and other file formats online.

Over the past several months, we’ve spoken to folks at many book publishers including one whose official title was “Book Detective”.  As we investigated the problem, we were amazed at the ease in which anyone can obtain a full copy of their favorite best seller . . . for free.   Today’s agreement with Hachette Book Group offers all book detectives some help; specifically,  best-of-breed content monitoring technology to increase the effectiveness of your anti-piracy efforts while dramatically reducing the resources required.

We are proud to announce Turner Broadcasting as the latest customer of our video monitoring and enforcement service.

Our Web-wide approach, combined with the ability to detect content down to 5-second thresholds, make Attributor the ideal solution for Turner’s enormous library of animation, entertainment, and news content. Turner’s brands boast some of the most popular content on the Web, surpassing even the most popular broadcast shows in terms of distribution.  With Attributor, Turner will be able to track down that content and manage copyright enforcement across unauthorized channels.

Turner has long been a pioneer of emerging media platforms first moving from billboards to UHF in the 70s, then to cable in the 80s, and eventually launching a top 20 web site with CNN.com in the 90s.  We are thrilled to be working with them on the next great distribution platform of the Internet.

We’re proud to announce our collaboration with Creative Commons and the public release of FairShare,  marking another step in our strategy of providing web wide visibility to all content creators, regardless of size.

FairShare is a one-of-a-kind, free service where anyone creating text content can claim their posts, assign a CC license and understand how their work is shared across the Web.  Nothing like this exists anywhere today.

FairShare was built to enable The Sharing Economy – specifically,  to make it possible for millions of other people around the world to reuse content in a way that provides value back to the original content creator . . . value that each creator can define herself.

Through web-wide visibility, we believe FairShare encourages continuously higher quality content to be produced, distributed and consumed online.   We recognize that there are a variety of motivations for publishing online and encourage you to try FairShare and tell us how we can make it serve you better.

As a product manager for Del Monte Foods, I found “Place” or distribution the most frustrating of the 4 P’s – it took millions of dollars and several months to get my product on the grocery store shelf. And once it was there, I had limited visibility into what happened once it left the warehouse – forcing me to make major decisions based on fuzzy data points.

If you are publishing content, the Internet has eliminated the barriers to get in front of users. However, you lack insight into what happens to your content after it leaves your site, and, more importantly, you lose control over monetization.

Steve Rubel describes it as the “Cut and Paste Web” and offers three strategies for thriving. Increasingly, we’re finding that publishers view their copied content as an opportunity to extend their brand and drive traffic back to their site. On the other hand, when controlled distribution is mission critical, it’s easy to empathize with publishers who view copied content as a problem.

Whether you view copied content as a problem or an opportunity, the Internet is too important a distribution channel in which to be blind. This is where Attributor can help. We’re excited to be enabling leaders like Reuters and the Associated Press to forge ahead with their digital strategies, and we’d like to help you too.

As you steer your media businesses towards an increasingly digital future, you’re going to need tools to help maximize your digital media profit. Here’s how Attributor can help across the organization:

Sales: Increase revenue by quantifying use by your licensees, identifying areas where the current license scope needs to be brought up to date, and identifying new license prospects.
Marketing and Editorial: Drive more page views by tailoring your content to appeal to a wide audience – including blogs, search engines and other third party sites.
Legal: Remove unauthorized content from search engine results, and reduce costs by automating removal notices and evidentiary support.
Business Development: Gain leverage with your strategic distribution partners through full visibility of re-use.

We’re excited to have the Associated Press as our first customer and look forward to providing publishers of all sizes and media types with the infrastructure required to succeed in a digital future.