Transpublishing:
POPULAR MISUNDERSTANDINGS

While transpublishing is a simple concept, it is very different from most current approaches, and so people often have difficulty understanding it, even if they are smart and well informed about copyright and on-line publishing.  In particular, people tend to confuse transpublishing with what they know already, such as fair use, pay-per-view, and negotiated republication.

IT'S NOT "FAIR USE"
• "Fair use" is a marginal method, a minor accommodation that loosens copyright law-- actually, sets it aside-- to allow small re-uses as exceptions.
• Fair use meets some of the needs of republishers (if very modest), but it has no direct benefit to original publishers.
• Transpublishing offers publishers a new form of distribution and sale.
• Fair use is for short quotations only; transpublishing allows quotations of any length and quantity.
• Fair use does not require permission by the original publisher; transpublishing requires a specific permission method so that all parties clearly know what permission exists.

IT'S NOT "PAY-PER-VIEW"
• While the user may have to pay for the first download, the user has then purchased the material and may in principle keep it forever.
• In principle the same material will not be sent again if another document quotes it, since the user already owns a copy. (However, caching methods to recognize this will need to be implemented.)

IT'S EXTREMELY DIFFERENT FROM ORDINARY REPUBLICATION
• The transquoter CANNOT MAKE MONEY from including transquoted material, since it is NOT REALLY IN THE NEW DOCUMENT; the benefit to the transquoter is to be able to present the material in some desired context of other contents.
• However, the transprovider can make money, by selling the quoted portions for very small amounts; these will add up significantly if pages are read very widely.
• The transquoter does not actually supply the quoted material, but provides pointers (TQstrings) which cause the quotation to be brought (or bought) from the original publisher.
• The transquoter pays nothing to the original publisher, since each reader will be downloading from the original publisher.
• No negotiation is necessary between original publisher and transquoter.
• The transquoter need not even contact the original publisher.

IT ONLY WORKS ON LINE
People who like the idea think it can be extended somehow to publishing paper copies without negotiation.  Sadly, this method-- where the original publisher supplies the quotations to each user-- only works for on-line documents.  To republish copyrighted material in other media (like paper, CD-ROMs, broadcast), old forms of negotiated permission must still apply.