What are the possible approaches to deal with IP in Web 2.0?
Registration Systems
One possible approach to help address questions like these is to develop registration type systems that help identify and describe works and their owners (or creators). These registration systems exist outside the created works as bodies of metadata and, in theory, can be kept updated by synchronizing changes in the original documents with changes in the registration system. In theory, registration systems can serve as an authoritative repository of information about the document and its creators and can also be used to store and track various business transactions associated with the document, e.g., transfers of ownership, usage, sales, etc.
There is somewhat skeptical of registration systems to be used for tracking ownership in “Web 2.0” situations where documents are malleable and collaboratively developed. The malleable nature of information is one of the reasons I am skeptical of registration systems that require a point-in-time registration and deposit of a document in order to be able to maintain or express certain rights. Under U.S. copyright law, works are protected by law the moment they are written. Making people jump through additional hoops must have a strong justification, especially if they are developing works that frequently change or involve collaborative efforts to create and maintain.
This is the classic problem of registration systems that exist independent of the original work – keeping the two synchronized. In an online interactive collaborative environment like the web, it is impossible to keep the two synchronized.
If you want to get paid royalties or usage fees based on actions performed against a specific object you'll need a tracking mechanism of some sort. Such systems, however, should be designed to support specific transactions associated with works that may not stay fixed for very long (as opposed to static media such as books), and that’s a challenge unless the system is tied into the actual transaction system.
These issues can be related to a new web site called "esbn.org" that appears to be a spinoff of a technology vendor, BookFob, that has developed an ebook publishing system that combines storage, reader, and delivery mechanisms so that each electronic copy of a document (e.g., a book) can be tied to the unique serial number of the device.
The "electronic standard book number" or "ESBN" (not to be confused with ISBN, the official numbering scheme used by publishers) appears to be a spinoff development that is being marketed as a solution for the identification needs of digital publishers. You register as a publisher or author with the site, create a description of the document you want to "register," and upload the file (sizes are limited during the site's beta stage). In return you get a registration number you can use for a variety of purposes and the promised availability of the system in the future to help you prove ownership.
The technology is slick, a Firefox extension is available, and esbn.org is being blogged about. It's an example of a technology-enabled entrepreneurial approach to solving certain types of licensing and distribution issues. (The lack of information on the ESBN web site [as of February 7, 2006] about the company itself, its funding, its business model, its management, its technology infrastructure, its storage capacity, its backup and security procedures, the numbering scheme itself, its standards committee makeup, and its existing customer base.
Unique Numbering Systems
The viability of unique document numbering systems in the context of the web since they can be stripped off if they're not embedded with the source document. If they are embedded using a watermarking or encryption system, that has the effect of (a) complicating the authoring and updating process (which negates some of the ease of the "wild and wooly" publishing environment the Web has become), and (b) serious pirates will be able to overcome them anyway, just as serious pirates have negated the effectiveness of audio CD DRM schemes. So registration systems by themselves can provide a false sense of security unless (as with the BookFob) they are tied directly to a secure physical storage device and reader.
References: