Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the Fair Syndication Consortium (FSC)?
2. Why would I join?
3. What do I need to do to join?
4. How does this new syndication model work?
5. What about people that don't follow the rules?
6. How does Fair Syndication handle Fair Use?
7. How big is the revenue opportunity??

1. What is the Fair Syndication Consortium (FSC)?
The FSC is a group of publishers of all sizes who are seeking an easier way to manage the distribution of their content online. They seek to develop new syndication models that fairly compensate content creators while letting the Internet do what it does best - distribute content everywhere so it can find its audience, wherever they are. The vision is to allow and even encourage full copies of articles to be distributed openly and widely, while respecting the intellectual property rights and financial interests of publishers.

2. Why would I join?
Different publishers have different objectives and different monetization methods. Fair Syndication is designed to work for publishers of all sizes and accommodate multiple business models.

Some publishers like Thomson Reuters and the Washington Post have existing syndication revenue streams and licensing agreements. Fair Syndication offers these publishers new incremental revenue which can be used in tandem with existing monetization methods. All this can be done in a way that protects destination site CPMs while providing brand controls.

Other publishers like ScienceDaily may not have any existing revenue, or may only advertise on their own site directly but without syndicating their content to others. For these publishers, Fair Syndication offers a self-service syndication engine providing top line growth as adding syndication partners requires no additional effort - no need to hire a sales force and no need for complex licensing agreements.

3. What do I need to do to join?
The first step is to sign up at fairsyndication.org. This adds you to the mailing list, through which you will receive updates and other news as this effort progresses. If you are a publisher and you are interested in understanding how your content is spreading and what that could be worth, sign up at FairShare (it's free). Provide a feed of your content and subscribe the results feed to understand full copy reuse of your content across the web.

4. How does this new syndication model work?
There are several implementation options, but the general idea is to share the risk of content syndication more evenly between creators and re-publishers. Current commercial syndication models tend to place asymmetric risk on the licensee by forcing them to commit to up-front licensing fees in exchange for re-publishing content. This adds significant friction to the syndication process and makes it hard for content to be quickly distributed to all relevant sites, large and small.

The FSC believes there is a better way; a model better suited to the organic and evolving dynamics of the Internet. The currency of the Internet is advertising, so it makes sense for ad revenue generated by syndicated content to be directly shared between publishers and copying sites. This allows syndication to easily scale up as well as down to the smallest sites with essentially zero up-front risk by either party. Syndication fees become a function of audience and associated ad revenue. Content can find its audience, wherever it is, and publishers are always fairly compensated.

5. What about people that don't follow the rules?
Even with the positive incentives inherent in the Fair Syndication model, there will be some people that - knowingly or unknowingly - fail to follow the rules. To be successful, some reasonable method of addressing non-compliance is needed. While the DMCA provides a foundation for demanding removal of copyright-infringing content, we believe such a draconian approach should only be used as a last resort. How, then, should issues of non-compliance be addressed?

The FSC has endorsed the Graduated Response methodology as the answer to this question. The approach is based on the belief that most people are reasonable and, if you simply ask, many will willingly comply. The reason it's graduated is it has to have methods for handling non-cooperation.

Step 1 - The goal here is to engage the site owner in rational conversation about full copies of a rights holder's content that do not comply with Fair Syndication rules. A friendly worded email is sent to the site's owner noting that full copies of someone else's content were found on their site. The site owner is reminded that the content is subject to licensing and it provides information about how to comply.

Step 2 - If no response is received within 14 days and the site has not removed the copies or complied with license terms, a second email is sent. This email informs the site owner that a) search engines will be contacted to have the web pages containing the copies removed from their indexes and b) advertising networks providing ads to the web pages containing copies will be contacted to have the ads removed from those pages. Again, the goal is to encourage the party come forward and to find a mutually agreeable solution to the copying in full before escalating further.

Step 3 - If the site is still non-responsive and doesn't remove the content within an additional 14 days, the site is escalated again. At this point, the site has made it clear that it is not interested in "doing unto others" and respecting the publishers' rights. As such, the next step is to contact the site host and request removal of full copies under the DMCA.

Between each escalation step, the site is monitored to see if the copies were removed as well as if any new full copies were posted.

6. How does Fair Syndication handle Fair Use?
The FSC is intentionally avoiding situations of reuse that get into Fair Use territory; instead, it is concentrating on the situation in which full copies are reused and monetized. This is simplest way to start as these cases are typically non-debatable. There are always exceptions that will need to be handled, but this conservative approach helps Fair Syndication steer clear of most, sticky Fair Use issues. As copyright law and generally accepted guidelines evolve, it's envisioned that Fair Syndication will evolve to cover other reuse scenarios.

7. How big is the revenue opportunity?
This is really two questions in one: a) how big is the revenue opportunity for existing, unlicensed, full copy reuse, and b) how big is the revenue opportunity if you enabled a whole new set of re-publishers to syndicate content that currently aren't?

Based upon data from variously sized publishers, traffic data based on Compete.com's audience measurements, and remnant ad CPMs, estimates indicate that the existing opportunity for U.S. publishers is hundreds of millions of dollars annually. This is based on current unlicensed reuse activity.

When you think about it, all unlicensed reuse that occurs today is done by people that don't respect the intellectual property rights of creators. What would happen if the rules for copying were suddenly clarified so that everybody was encouraged to copy great content? We won't know for sure until we try, but it seems obvious that content will find it much easier to find its audience - and that's directly related to the economic return to every creator.