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resources | nelson, 1995

Nelson, Theodor Holm (1995). Where the Trail Leads [Abstract, Transcript, Video]. Presentation at As We May Think -- A Celebration of Vannevar Bush's 1945 Vision, An Examination of What Has Been Accomplished, and What Remains to Be Done. (Nelson, 1995)

Copyright and Transpublication Solution [Transcription of Video]

Nelson: The transpublication idea is very simple, but its different. It's a paradigm confrontation. The transpublication notion is that we can solve the copyright problem very simply. I always believed in copyright, but I always hated the obstruction of copyright. How can we get rid of the obstruction, while retaining the benefits. The benefits of copyright are: we reward the creators; we give credit to the creators, that means financial reward as well as credit; and, in the normal copyright context, the original publisher can censor further uses of the material if they don't like the context in which that material would appear. So the transpublication proposal is that all materials can be used virtually.
 
This was the heart of my 1960 idea. All materials can be reused virtually because the reusing document contains only a pointer to those materials to which the creator of the republishing document wishes to reuse in the new context. So, to transpublish, you create a map of how you would like some new user to construct some new media object out of materials which are out there on the net. The user receives the symbolic structure. The user sends automatically for the pieces and then composites them according to your instructions. What is achieved?
 
  1. You have virtually republished, and you have been free to create the new construct exactly as you like without asking the author or negotiating.
  2. The materials were obtained from their originators on the sale basis requested by their publishers.
  3. You own a legitimate copy of these things correctly sold, there is no ambiguity.
  4. The money may have been paid as they requested.
  5. The original author gets credited.
  6. You have the address of the original material, so if you want to see the original material in the original context, you may scroll back and buy more of it.

 
Now tell me, what is wrong with this picture? As I see it, obviously, you never solve all the problems. People say, "well, you didn't solve this problem, or you didn't solve that one." Ok, maybe I only found a cure for cancer, not for death, but it seems to me it is a major contribution. If we can get people to follow this, you have the solution that gives everyone most of the things they want on a completely fair and win-win basis. But, it is a different software paradigm, because it basically requires a new copyright and a new form of software in which the separate pieces are kept separate, so that you are caching the materials in, let's say, special lockers where each piece is kept clean with its receipt, and if you composite them, you are only compositing them on the screen. They are kept separate, and when you create a new composite, you are editing that composite in such a way that you send out symbolic pointers to the recipient, so you can re-transpublish by this method. But there is presently no compliant software. That's the kicker, so this is the next step.
© Mary E. Hopper [MEHopper] | MEHopper@TheWorld.com [posted 01/01/01 | revised 02/02/02]