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James,
You may wish to look at, XrML - eXtensible rights Markup Language - is
the Digital Rights Language of choice. XrML provides a universal method
for securely specifying and managing rights and conditions associated
with all kinds of resources including digital content as well as services.
http://www.xrml.org/about.asp
grant
James Adams wrote:
> Just had a thought for a useful application of XML to the online
> copyright arena and wanted to get some feedback. I do graphic/website
> design for a living and find that I spend a lot of my time creating
> and requesting written approvals for the use of other people's
> copyrighted materials. This tends to delay my ability to publish site
> updates that have been completed but are awaiting written approval or
> renewal. To give an example, I maintain the website for a day-spa
> that recently decided to add a page listing the companies whose
> products they use at the spa. Each product manufacturer has a little
> section on the page that has their logo, some marketing text, and a
> link to the manufacturer's website. In order to make sure I'm covered
> in case of a copyright infringement lawsuit, I need to keep on file a
> written letter of approval from each manufacturer that states I have
> their permission to use that particular set of images and text on that
> particular page. I know for a fact that in this particular case every
> one of the manufacturers viewed and verbally approved the work within
> two days of completion, but several of them took two or three weeks to
> send me the documentation. There are several problems with doing
> things this way:
>
> 1. You are at the mercy of the copyright owner with regard to the
> language and terms of the written approval unless they agree to use a
> document that you have written. I find that often they do not do a
> very good job of specifying which materials you can use or on which
> sections of the site they can be used.
>
> 2. They almost always include a clause requiring that you request a
> new approval if you change anything on that page. To stay within the
> law, this means I have to request a new approval just to fix a typo or
> a link.
>
> 3. It is difficult for other employees at either company that were not
> involved in the original approval process to tell if the material is
> in compliance, since all they have to work with is the date on the
> approval letter and what is currently on the site.
>
> I think it would be extremely useful to have a standardized way of
> handling these approvals and proofs of approval, and XML seems like
> the perfect tool for the job. What I am thinking is that every image
> or chunk of text within a website whose copyright owner is external
> would be wrapped in some sort of identifying tag. The site could then
> have an XML file that lists things like the date of approval,
> copyright owner, duration of the approval (when it has to be reviewd
> again), etc. I'm thinking that the whole system should work in a
> manner similar to security certificates, so that a third-party web
> service can verify / issue approval certificates. If anybody has any
> thoughts, I would love to hear them. Maybe there is already something
> out there that handles these issues?
>
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