Comparisons

5.1.1 The comparison of Robot.txt and Robots Meta tags and CC licensing scheme in respect of identically licensing all works

As we have shown in the above sections, the Robots.txt and Robot Meta tags as well as the CC licensing scheme can both adopted by the webmasters to assign the authorization scopes of all works in the Web page or website. In other words, through these two methods, webmasters can easily use a short segment of code or a few tags to license all works in the same site under the same condition, rather than awkwardly repeating the licensing condition of each work. Nevertheless, these two schemes are different in the following aspects:

At first, the CC licensing scheme can express more specific rights within one term

“copyright”: including the modification, distribution and reproduction rights. On the other hand, the Robots.txt and Robots Meta tags are restricted to each step in the process of software robots, consequently, the expansion edition of the Robots.txt and Robots Meta tags merely represent the copyright authorization related to each step of software robots, rather than the specific rights embraced in copyrights. Secondly, the users of the CC licensing scheme can choose the jurisdictions; on the contrary, the users of the Robots.txt and Robots Meta tags have no free to choose the laws they want to follow. As a result, it can be said that the later one, the Robots.txt and Robots Meta tags, is easier to use but may arise a few of uncertainties in some situations.

In addition to the differences above, the other obvious difference between these two licensing methods is that, based on their basic features, the Robots.txt and Robot Meta tags is only visible to the software robots, but invisible to the viewers. On the other hand, the CC licensing information in HTML form can be seen by viewers and, this part of page illustrates all essential elements to specify the copyright authorization scope, including the deeds and the necessary URLs. In fact, such invisibility of the Robots.txt and Robot Meta tags actually offers the viewers who confront copyright infringement allegations a reasonable defense as they can argue that they have not see any copyright notice in the page under a general circumstance.

The following table summarizes the differences between the Robots.txt and Robot Meta tags as well as the CC licensing scheme in terms of expressing authorization scope of all works in one page or site.

Table XIII. The differences between the two approaches in respect of identically licensing all works

5.1.2 The comparison of showing licensing information in page, embedding information in body and storing information in filename (CCFE)

As we mentioned above, the present CC licensing scheme offers users a method to license their works host in a Web page. A software robot “reads” the host file and then accesses to the binary file pointed to in the HTML or XML “wrapper”. This method is quite easy and no further tool is needed. However, the method around creates a problem with what we call “portability”. When a user copies the binary file,

the wrapper or host file can be detached, thus the CC license is disconnected from the binary component. In other words, the licensing information showing the page is apart from the file itself; that is to say, the right licensing information is hard to locate and, even worse, this information may be lost in the course of transformation.

To resolve the foregoing problem, two approaches can be adopted: the first idea is embedding the CC licensing information in the body of the file itself. This method is practical for text files; however, there are no general tools to embed the licensing information into binary files. The authors must handle the additional processes manually. The second one is trying to store the CC licensing information in other attached parts of a file. After analyzing several common parts of a file in the existing popular file systems, we finally propose CCFE, which suggests users to store the information in the name of a file, because the file name is not only a part which general users have authorities to modify, but a necessary part of the HTML messages as well.

Even we propose the CCFE to store the CC licensing information in the name of a binary file, we can not ignore that this innovative approach may still confront several challenges, in respect of technology and legal aspects separately:

From the technology aspect, compared to the XMP and other similar tools, a CCFE file exposure the authorization information to all users on the Internet. In other words, any one who can access to this file has an opportunity to modify the authorization information contained in the filename and, then distributes the file with faked authorization information. On the contrary, the information embedded in the body of a binary file has a chance to implement higher security.

From the legal aspect, the first challenge is that, comparing to the original digital-code, the licensing information containing in the condition list of CCFE is more unspecific. The most obvious point is that the condition list does not provide a URL linking to the Web page containing the specific CC license. That is to say, a user unfamiliar to the formats of CCFE may argue that he or she has no chance to access to the specific legal contents of the CC license; as a result, the user may have a possible

defense to against the copyright infringement allegations under this circumstance. The easiest technical method to avoid this unwelcome scenario is offering a tool, such as a browser, to help users to understand the authorization scope contained in the filename.

Moreover, the best and most useful way is improving the file system or the OS. When a user opens or deals with a CCFE file, the OS can simultaneously alert the user and provide a clear explanation of the licensing information to the user. Accordingly, a user who uses an OS with this function has no chance to argue that he or she does not comprehend the authorization information contained in the filename.