Caveat: I've never logged in as a buyer, so I'm not sure what CC is currently telling buyers about Internet usage of articles they buy. Maybe they already say that users who want to post articles on the Internet must buy either a "Unique" or "Full-rights" license or suffer the wrath of Google.
Scenario: Let's say I sell an article to two different buyers for "usage rights". Both buyers, it turns out, put the article up on the Internet, and Google punishes the second site (traffic-wise) severely for publishing duplicate content. That second buyer may not know that Google does this. If both buyers (or all buyers, or all but the first buyer to post an article on the Internet) buy usage rights only and use the text offline (paper article, magazine, flier, etc.) or on an intrAnet or something, no problem because only one copy of the article is on the Internet for Google to index. The only time it becomes a problem is if, say, the same article is published on an Internet blog and on another Internet website. In other words, my understanding is that two or more customers can currently legitimately buy usage rights and publish the same article on their Internet website/blog/whatever, and they may not know about this Google traffic punishment, and they may not know if they're the first to publish on the Internet or not (if that even matters, which I'm not sure that it does).
So, the big question is... Should there be an additional selling category, for example "Internet Usage" rights, to ensure that customers know that if they're not the first person to purchase "Internet usage" rights and post the article, then Google will severely cut at least the subsequent sites' traffic, if not also the first site's? If it also cuts the first site's traffic, which I think it does, then maybe this should instead be a special type of unique usage sale, such as "Internet-Unique Usage": after the first such sale, then only "Non-Internet Usage" rights can be sold? (for magazines, fliers, handouts, whatever--print material or intrAnet usage only...)
That all leads to further questions... If such a (confusing) change in sales tiers were made, would this increase our "usage" sales and decrease our "unique" and "Full rights" sales, and if so would that be a good or bad thing for our overall revenue? How would it affect our pricing strategies, if at all? How would it affect authors and how would it affect customers? Do we already know how customers are going to be using purchased content (Internet, intranet, offline)?
Hopefully someone understands Google's latest (May 2013) search engine changes better than I do and can prove me wrong straightaway. But, true to what I've read, since the May changes to Google, I've had content stolen from other places and the traffic to my original article plummeted, and there was almost no traffic to the thief's site containing the copied content, either, since they posted my stolen content years after I did. (Note that this was a case of theft, not legitimate usage rights sales, as in the scenario I'm presenting related to CC.)
Thoughts anyone/everyone?
![Confused :?](https://www.constant-content.com/forum/images/smilies/icon_confused.gif)