CopySeal

[R. A. Hettinga]

http://www.brw.com.au/stories/20020606/15198.asp


BRW.com.au
 June 11, 2002

Copyright gets a new ally

Edited by Jame Kirby


After a 10-month absence, Mike Kerr, the former chief executive of
FreeOnline, is back in the internet industry. He has a new Web technology
that has been designed to enforce copyright by blocking the ability to
reproduce Web content.

Kerr has resurfaced as the commercial director at a start-up, Copyseal,
which has a patent pending on technology that he says is a breakthrough for
internet content. Web-blocking technologies are common on the internet, but
most are based on internet filters that make a Web site impossible to
access. The Copyseal technology allows the reader to see the text but not
to electronically copy it to another site or to print it out.

Kerr hopes the Copyseal technology will appeal to corporate customers who
want to manage the distribution of internet content more effectively. The
technology can also be used to make intranet sites secure by tracking
hackers who circumvent the software and print out internal corporate
material.

"The technology could be used, for example, by directory publishers who
wish to preview copyright material on the Web without allowing that
material to be distributed any further," Kerr says. (Kerr came to
prominence in the local  internet industry as the chief executive of
FreeOnline, the free internet service provider that closed in August last
year when the market for free internet services proved unviable.)

Copyseal is a software tool that works on the server of any internet site
and allows a Web publisher to control distribution of documents in
hypertext mark-up language (the language of the Web). The "seal" is created
by the insertion of random characters into the selected documents. The
random characters are not visible on screen, but if there is an attempt to
print the pages, the text on paper will be illegible; also, the material
will not reproduce on another Web site.

A weak spot in the technology is that it corrupts rather than destroys the
text that can be printed off the Web, making it possible to read a document
if the reader is extremely patient. Kerr dismisses this, saying that 90% of
people would not be prepared to spend the time reading corrupted text.

Kerr and his financial backers - Rob van der End, the chief executive of
the software company Powerserve, and entrepreneur Alan Kras - are
discussing Copyseal with several companies, including the law firm Baker &
McKenzie, which is believed to be considering the technology for its
intranet.

A pricing model for the technology has not been finalised. Kerr says it
will be based on an annual licence fee and transaction-based charges.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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