quotuum

Quotuum is a proposed unit of measurement used in discussions of textual usage and copyright to quantify the proportion of quoted material within a text. The term is a neologism derived from quotum and the Latin suffix -uum, and is not part of formal law in most jurisdictions. In practice, a quotuum would express the share of the text that consists of or relies on verbatim quotes rather than original writing or paraphrase.

Calculation and variants: A quotuum would be computed as the sum of words (or characters) that appear as quoted passages divided by the total words (or characters) in the text. Some formulations distinguish inline quotes from block quotes, and others exclude citations, boilerplate, or metadata. Because quoting practices vary by field, there is no universally agreed method for measuring a quotuum, and different studies may use different thresholds.

Applications and interpretation: Proponents cite quotuum as a tool for auditing source use, guiding licensing decisions, or evaluating fair-use risk in legal or policy analysis. In academic and editorial settings, it could help assess reliance on sources or the balance between quotation and original synthesis. In machine learning and data curation, quotuum could inform assessments of training-data provenance and copyright exposure.

Limitations and criticisms: The concept is sensitive to context, quotation length, and transformation. Paraphrase, summary, and critical analysis may serve as legitimate content without increasing quotuum proportion. Because there is no agreed standard, quotuum is best used as a descriptive indicator rather than a prescriptive rule.

See also: Fair use, Quotation, Copyright, Data provenance.