Ethical reuse of content. People are doing it on the Web, at home, and at work. My wife burns copies of DVDs for the kids, so that they don't ruin the originals. I repost quotes and pictures from other blogs and websites for comment and discussion on this site. My family records TV shows and movies with our PVR. Though in Canada, I am concerned that some of these historical rights will soon disappear.

Don't get me wrong, content creators have a legitimate concern. They need answers to this most important question:
How can I make money (a living) from my content when it is so easy to copy and reuse?

I believe they can make a living in Today's world. I believe that new business models are being developed to embrace the realities of Today's digital media market place. I do not believe we should be creating legislation to maintain old business models and I'm not alone. To that end, a group of interested Web professionals have started an open group to discuss, inform, and promote the work being done on this issue. It's called, PlayTheWeb.org.

[PlayTheWeb.org] is interested in promoting the idea of “Web Play” through the ethical reuse of content on the Web. We want to report, comment, and promote Technologies, Techniques, Applications, and Business models that move this idea forward.
By ethical we mean reusing content while maintaining respect to the original rights of the copyright holder(s). ”Respect” is intentionally an ambiguous word left to interpretation of those engaged in the creative process.

There is a great deal of excellent work being done on proactive licensing for content available for reuse. There are people focused on tools, protocols, and formats to ensure content can be moved among systems, software, and networks. Play the Web is strictly focused on technologies and business models to support content reuse. If this is also of interest to you, please have your say and get involved.

One of the first things PlayTheWeb.org is trying to support is the development of a new open content attribution format in order to help content creators and application developers publish where and from whom reused content is being sourced.