Cc-hk mailing list

[Haggen So <haggen_so AT yahoo.com>]

Hi all,

I have post a short description of my idea to use Emoticons to promote CC 
on http://cchk.wetpaint.com/page/Ideas   This is what I found so far:

In terms of images, Emoticons are one of the most frequently type of 
graphics.  In fact, a number of cartoonists such as WanWan in Taiwan have 
already received commercial benefits from sharing their emoticons online. 
In Hong Kong, people are skeptical about a 'free' model and emoticons can 
be a good example to persuade them.  Unfortunately, there is one big 
problem - emoticons are mostly used in IM(Instant Messengers) such as MSN. 
It is difficult to attribute an image and stated the type of license 
adopted.  Currently, the norm is to just use it and many users probably 
never heard of authors of these emoticons.

Ethan, the author of a very popular emoticon series called Onion heads, 
expressed his expectation in the Taiwan CC newsletter that licensing his 
work in CC by-nc-nd would promote respect on the copyright of his 
work(issue 14 
http://creativecommons.org.tw/static/about/maillist/archive/014 ).  My 
perception is that the sharing but not attributing norm is already strong. 
I have developed a Firefox extension for proper attribution of emoticons 
on blogs and forums (See demo 
http://www.xanga.com/lbrabbit/618118567/22312321783546820013211522083721487248592356722294-v052.html 
), it creates a hyperlink on the emoticon and combined with SnapShot, the 
author's homepage can be shown with a mouseover action.  The details of 
the CC license is automatically generated at the bottom.  Unfortunately, 
at least one user expresses his/her concern that the extra coding 
generated to support the above is too complex.  I believe others share 
similar views but they are too polite to express them.  Moreover, this 
extension does not cover IM.

From the experience in creating the Firefox extension, I can see that one 
possible remedy for IM is to have a pop-up balloon like SnapShot with 
attribution and license information when the mouse cursor is positioned 
above the emoticon.  This requries a way to retrieve the corresponding 
attribution and license data.  The 'correct' method is to attach this 
information using the Adobe standard XMP(Extensible Metadata Platform 
http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/ ).  Unfortunately, a number of 
Emoticons from the authors like Ethan are already flowing on the Internet 
without XMP attached.  An alternative is to have a centralised server with 
checksums(MD5/SHA1/SHA2) of emoticons as keys.  Any client can lookup 
attribution and license information using a checksum.

I am aware that I start from a search for a CC promotion example and land 
onto a computer science research proposal ;) I will spare you from the 
analysis of the pros and cons of setting up this centralised server.  In 
short, I can explain how sharing emoticons can generate commercial 
opportunities but I have not come up with a way to explain why to share 
them under a CC license as the license currently cannot be reinforced on 
popular IMs.


Haggen
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In that bygone, panoramic era, people were so insignificant; 
In this trivial era, people are all the more insignificant.
                                           ~ Unrequited Utopia

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