Copyright Management and Control Systems: Metering

Metering systems allow copyright owners to ensure payment to or at the time of a consumer's use of the work. Those technologies include:

Hardware Devices

Those have to be acquired and installed by the user. For example under a debit card approach, the user purchases a debit card that is pre-loaded with a certain amount of value. After installation, the debit card is debited automatically as the user consumes copyrighted works.

Digital Certificates

Hereby a certification authority issues to a user an electronic file that identifies the user as the owner of a public key. Those digital certificates, besides information on the identity of the holder can also include rights associated with a particular person. Vendors can so control access system resources, including copyrighted files, by making them available only to users who can provide a digital certificate with specified rights (e.g. access, use, downloading).

Centralized Computing

Under this approach all of the executables remain at the server. Each time the executable is used, the user's computer must establish contact with the server, allowing the central computer to meter access.

Access Codes

Access code devices permit users to "unlock" protective mechanisms (e.g. date bombs or functional limitations) embedded in copyrighted works. Copyright owners can meter the usage of their works, either by unlocking the intellectual property for a one-time license fee or by requiring periodic procurement of access codes.

Copyright Clearinghouses

Under this approach copyright owners would commission "clearinghouses" with the ability to license the use of their works. A user would pay a license fee to obtain rights concerning the intellectual property.


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Invention of photo copies, 1727

Searching for the Balduinist fluorescenting phosphor (Balduinischer Leuchtphosphor), an artificial fluorescent, Johann Heinrich Schulze realized the first photocopies, but does not put them into practical use.

Not before 1843 the first optical photocopier was patented, when William Henry Fox Talbot got granted a patent for his magnifying apparatus.

In 1847 Frederick Collier Bakewell developed a procedure for telecopying, a forerunner of the fax machine. But not before 1902 images could be transmitted. Almost 200 years after Schulze's discovery, for the first time photo telegraphy was offered as telecommunication service in Germany in 1922.

Source: Klaus Urbons, Copy Art. Kunst und Design mit dem Fotokopierer, Köln: Dumont, 1993 (2nd edition)

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First typewriter patent, 1713

In 1714 Henry Mill got granted a patent for his idea of an "artificial machine or method" for forgery-proof writing, but not before 1808 the first typewriter proven to have worked, was built by Pellegrino Turri for his visually impaired friend, the Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono. In 1873 commercial production of typewriters began.

For a brief history of typewriters see Richard Polt, The Classic Typewriter Page, http://xavier.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters.html

http://xavier.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters.html
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