I have started to use Furl to create an archive of articles (mostly PDFs) that I find on the web related to informational cascades for myself (and eventually for my blog readers as well). So far I’m finding two significant limitations.
First, Furl apparently doesn’t do full text search for PDF’s yet. That’s too bad; there are OSS libraries available that would allow them to index these documents. Maybe they’ll get around to it.
More worrisome, though, is the IP problem that can’t be fixed by simply adding a standard feature. If I Furl somebody’s PDF and then share the link to the archive (Furl copies and saves web content), am I violating copyright? I’m not sure when or if that happens. It would be great if Furl the ability to read Creative Commons metadata and guide users on any potential Furling-related IP issues.
Michael Feldstein is the founder of e-Literate who currently works as the Senior Program Manager for MindTap at Cengage Learning. For more information, see his profile page.
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