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  • From: Haggen So <haggen_so AT yahoo.com>
  • To: cc-hk AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Cc-hk] A followup on my Emoticons Idea
  • Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:01:15 -0800 (PST)

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.
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  • [Cc-hk] A followup on my Emoticons Idea, Haggen So, 11/19/2007

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