IPTC would like to adopt a machine-readable solution for rights. This is the progress report on the work to date. If you would like to get involved, please contact http://www.iptc.org

1. IPTC and
Rights Expression Languages
Stuart Myles
Associated Press
4th November 2010

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Rights Examples
• “No New York”
• “Not for Yahoo”
• “No Canada mobile”
• “No sales”
• “Any non-commercial use, requires attribution”
• “No Internet/Mobile usage without Football
Association Premier League (FAPL) license”
• “No mobile use until 2 hours after the match,
website users are obliged to comply with DFL
restrictions”

3. IPTC and Rights
• In March 2010, we reviewed IPTC rights support
– NITF, NewsML 1, the G2 Family
– Each offers semi-structured natural language statements
• Conclusion a machine-readable solution is required
– Principally for use within the G2 family of standards
• IPTC would prefer to select an existing language, rather
than developing a new REL entirely from scratch
– We evaluated candidate languages and decided that ODRL was
the best option
– We are working within ACAP v2 to create an ODRL Profile
– Questions raised about patents on RELs
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4. Rights Expression Language?
• A machine-readable language to convey rights
associated with a piece of content
• Automatically answer the question
– Can we use this content for this particular purpose?
• Rights:
– Permissions and restrictions on the use of a piece of content
– Granted by a rights holder to a user
• Basic Structure:
– {Party A} grants {Party B} the right to {Action C} with {Item D}
under {Condition E}
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5. The ODRL Approach
• Core model
– The basic framework for expressing rights and restrictions
• Domain-specific vocabularies
– Specific actions or constraints
– Designed to be used by a particular industry
– Terms and their definitions
• Common vocabulary
– Designing a vocabulary that is not aimed at a specific vertical
– Based on other RELs, including PLUS
• Encoding
– Expressing ODRL in XML, RDF (perhaps JSON, microformats)
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6. What You Can Do
• IPTC members can contribute in a number of ways:
• Supply more rights expression examples for evaluation
• Join ACAP/ODRL & develop the news-specific vocabularies
– Next ACAP conference call
• 16th November 2010
– Next ODRL Skype call
• 23rd November 2010
– Sign up to the ODRL/ACAP wiki
– http://odrl.net/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=ACAP+Profile
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