Copyright holding groups are always coming up with creative ideas for the classification and ranking of content. Here's another that hadn't occurred to us. Why not ask search engines to attach "red light" symbols next to sites categorized as a "risk" and put green ticks next to sites deemed safer?

That's exactly what a United Kingdom music copyright royalty collection organization proposes.

"Traffic Lights provide a visual indication to users approaching an unlicensed site that the site is facilitating copyright theft," explains the Performing Rights Society for Music's new plan (PDF).

"The traffic light—a green tick or red cross—would appear next to a link to the site in question. The traffic light can be applied wherever the site is, not just those in the UK, increasing the ability of consumers to protect themselves from sites hosted abroad and increasing their confidence in legitimate sites."

As the graphic below indicates, when a cursor hovers over a "red tick" site, a message would pop up. "This site links to unlicensed media," it warns.

Nudging consumers

Whatever you think about PRS for Music's idea, the timing for it is quite good. The UK's government is expected to respond fairly soon to its telecom regulator's recommendations for implementing the Digital Economy Act, with its controversial "three strikes" system for copyright infringers.

The government-backed "Hargreaves report" was very critical of the process that led to the Act, describing it as "lobbynomics." But it also noted that consumers are bewildered by the controversy over "legal" versus "illegal" content.

"In a world where it is possible to listen to music free on the radio; free or by subscription through a computer or smartphone from a streaming service; or by continuing to put a purchased or borrowed CD in a player, the concept of 'ownership' and 'purchase' has itself been redefined," wrote its author, journalism professor Ian Hargreaves.

"For the browsing consumer, it is not always obvious whether a music service is providing copyright material illegally—unless the supplier chooses to put the skull and crossbones on its mainsail, like Pirate Bay, the Swedish download service established in 2003, which today claims five million users, in spite of the fact that its founders received jail sentences in 2009."

So PRS for Music seeks to simplify the problem. "At present there is contradictory information presented to consumers searching for music and other entertainment online," the proposal explains. "Traffic lights is a solution which addresses this uncertainty with the intended impact that it nudges consumers in a legal (and safe) direction."

A full view

One big question is how sites would be "ticked" or classified as red or green. The color would be tallied on the basis of how many copyright infringement notices and takedown requests the site has received, the report discloses. Each site would then be given a "score"—the basis of its red or green light status.

"If a site has ignored a number of takedown requests, then we believe that it is fair to categorise the site as a risk and show a warning signal to consumers that are approaching it," the document adds. "In effect, traffic lights provide an incentive structure so that sites are encouraged to license content legitimately as well as penalising sites which refuse to take down illegal content."

Another challenge would be how to get search engines to implement this scheme. The PRS scheme doesn't address that problem. Instead it observes that the red/green distinction is already implemented in another context—the colors are already used by Internet security services to warn users away from sites that may contain Trojan or phishing scams. "This Traffic Lights proposal extends these services to inform users of potential copyright issues with a site, as well as other unfair or unsafe trading practices."

The plan also anticipates concerns from users. "Traffic lights will not be accepted unless their source is trusted and independent," the plan acknowledges. And so it proposes an "independent authority body" to oversee the idea. This entity would be authorized to take "a full view of the behaviour of a site, backed up by numbers and evidence of malpractice."

Moral majority

Who would be represented on this body? The proposal doesn't say, but its closing statement offers a hint about the makeup. "Traffic Lights has a valuable role as a consumer education initiative," the missive concludes. "We would like to work with ISPs, Internet security software providers, rightsholders, and other partners, to deliver this solution as soon as practicably possible."

We pinged PRS with a number of questions about this idea, especially the makeup of the proposed independent authority. PRS Office staff member Barney Hooper got back to us about its possible internal structure:

"In terms of the 'central and independent body' this could be a regulatory body (such as an Ofcom) or be independent of government or sit within a government department—all to be decided, discussed and debated," Hooper explained. "We wanted to stress at this early stage that the key thing was that for this proposal to work, there would need to be an independent body for the plan to be credible. It would need to liaise with all rightsholders and also anti-virus software providers/ISPs etc to ensure the supply of information was accurate and timely."

The proposal doesn't currently include any kind of appeals mechanism, we noted.

"You are absolutely right and it would need an appeals mechanism within it as well," Hooper acknowledged.

There's also the question of how takedown notices will be tabulated. Here's the answer: "In terms of takedown communications in the UK, I believe these currently sit with the Anti-Piracy Units of the both the BPI and also our own antipiracy unit."

Finally, we expressed some skepticism about the overall effectiveness of the idea. The PRS proposal posits the existence of a "Moral Majority" for whom Traffic Lights will work. The system will perform the crucial role of "establishing a distinction between good and bad in the minds of users, which we hope will be enough to deter 90 percent of users from accessing problem sites."

No doubt the right light tick would scare some consumers away. But what about rebellious types, we asked, who might see a red tick as a badge of honor?

"Oh yes," Hooper agreed. "I think there will be people that deliberately go for a red light. We're realistic about this proposal—this will not eradicate piracy. What it will do is signpost to the vast majority of people who want to find legal/licensed content a great way of doing so. It will help promote those sites that have chosen to go down the route of paying creators and performers and the more traffic they experience the better for content owners and also for their own sites in terms of search rankings."

The PRS document does point out that the red light/green light system will create a "vital" distinction will provide the "bedrock" for "an escalating series of measures to deal with the remaining determined offenders."