ACAP licensing

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

This is an important development.  From the homepage:

"ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol) is being developed as 
an industry standard by the publishing industry, working with 
search engines and other technical and commercial partners.

"ACAP will enable the providers of all types of content published 
on the World Wide Web to communicate permissions information 
(relating to access and use of that content) in a form that can 
be automatically recognized and interpreted, so that business 
partners can systematically comply with the publishers' policies. 
In the first instance, ACAP will provide a framework that will 
allow any publisher, large or small, to express access and use 
policies in a language that search engines' robot "spiders" can 
be taught to understand. It is anticipated that, in future, the 
scope of ACAP will be extended to other business relationships 
and other media types.

"As a result, it will be possible for publishers to make more 
content available to users through the search engines, and to 
continue to innovate in the development of business models for 
network publishing."

The URL is http://www.the-acap.org/.

I would like to see this go one step further and have every 
*hardcopy* publication ship with an option for a license, with 
automated registration on a Web site (modeled on Creative 
Commons).  Heck, if a robot can get an automatic license, why 
can't a person?  This would eliminate the guessing game and 
pointless administrative costs of figuring out what is authorized 
and what is not.  Publishers would be wise to promulgate simple, 
reasonably-priced, and socially progressive terms--"wise" in the 
sense of "in their interest."

Joe Esposito