ICopyright

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iCopyright, Inc. is a copyright licensing and content services company based in the Seattle, Washington area and provides a copyright system for digital content. iCopyright works with publishers and independent creators to protect, promote, distribute and monetize their content from news and editorial articles to blogs and independent creative works. The technology of iCopyright instantly secures the rights to use and share content while maintaining copyright compliance. iCopyright is used by thousands of global news organizations, trade publications and newspapers, such as Reuters, Associated Press, Investors Business Daily, and The Boston Globe, to sell reprints and grant permissions.^[1]^[2]

[edit] History

iCopyright, named to convey Intelligent Copyright, was founded in 1998 by Michel Jackson and has become the world's first automated copyright licensing system for digital content. In 1997, O'Donnell came up with the original idea of an automated copyright licensing system to tag articles so that a user could purchase a license within 30 seconds. Some licenses would be free, others would have a fee, and educational discounts would be available. O'Donnell developed the iCopyright symbol that has been trademarked in 30 countries. This symbol appears on Internet article sites and, when clicked, directs the user to the copyright information. This includes information about who owns the copyright and what one can and cannot do with the article. In 1998, the pilot was developed out of Design Intelligence, and in 1999, the first version of the iCopyright site was launched. The LA Times became the first to use the service on the 2 million pages of current and archived content that they supported (which averaged about 300 articles a day at the time). The company has filed seven patents in the field of automated permissions and copyright licensing.^[3]^[4]