CDL Rights Management Framework

Overview

The CDL rights management framework supports the implementation of systems and services, including:

• Development of rights aspects of digital repositories
• Dissemination of rights to users

The purpose of a rights framework is to provide tools for data producers. These tools will guide providers at points along the work flow so that rights can be considered in selection, preparation, storage, and dissemination of materials.

Introduction

This document describes a broad framework for understanding the digital rights environment of the CDL, and provides general policies that will guide the decisions that must be made as resources are created, acquired and shared in a digital environment.

The current interest in rights for digital materials is based on the rapid increase in services that make use of resources in digital formats. Not only are libraries and archives increasingly reaching out to their users over electronic networks, the teaching function that many libraries serve is investing heavily in web-based curriculum tools. Publishers are also providing more of their products in digital formats, and libraries are significant customers for those formats. Intellectual property rights are the primary rights of concern for digital libraries, but the general legal context for digital materials includes other rights issues, such as privacy and confidentiality.

The CDL has multiple roles in the creation of digital services. CDL designs and facilitates the use of tools that allow other libraries to provide services to their end users. CDL creates and hosts some digital services that directly serve end users. CDL also creates and manages tools that allow scholarly communities to explore new methods of publication and communication. In addition, CDL is the central licensing agency for the University of California for digital materials offered by aggregators of database and reference information. All of these functions have rights implications.

As a means for making more effective use of University resources, CDL has embraced a shared service model for the development and delivery of services. With this approach campus libraries can build local and highly customized services, based upon components that are made available from a number of different sources. Since these services carry with them obligations for intellectual property rights and privacy, it follows that a shared framework for managing this important charge be implemented.

Principles and Goals

There are general principles and goals that inform CDL's decisions about rights, both from the view of a user of the material of others, and from the view of a creator of digital services. The first principle is that CDL's role is to provide the broadest set of services to the greatest number of users. This means that CDL will work to maximize the audience for resources and the activities where those resources can be used. The second principle is that CDL works within a layered service model where resources may be used in a variety of ways by different actors, going beyond the original context of the digital resource. The emphasis for CDL is to provide virtual uniform databases that allow the University of California libraries to meet the needs of their users for the educational and research activities of the University. This leads easily into the third principle which is that interoperability is a key component of the CDL; the sharing of data between functions and between institutions is essential to the success of CDL's services. A fourth principle is that CDL works to develop an enterprise-wide business environment that favors generalizable, scaleable solutions. And the fifth principle is that CDL has a primary role in preserving cultural heritage resources that have been digitized or are created in digital formats. This means that CDL serves a very long term view of those resources and their cultural value.

These goals have impact on many areas of the Digital Library's activities, including the interaction with intellectual property rights. To provide the broadest set of services to the greatest number of users, CDL will negotiate with rights holders to seek permissions that allow the Digital Library to serve both the University and the State of California. The University of California, as a state-funded institution, has a mandate that goes beyond the interests of its faculty and students to provide resources for the education of all California residents. The implementation of a layered service model means that rights information and permissions must be able to be clearly communicated through the layers and to the end-users of the resources. The use of standards for all functions will increase the interoperability of the resources and the aspects of use that depend on understanding the rights held in the materials. Attention to a business environment that favors generalizable enterprise-wide solutions means promoting general solutions over ad hoc ones and taking advantage of the efficiencies of those general solutions. Taking the long term view of cultural artifacts in digital format means that it is not enough to secure and document rights as they exist today; the information about rights and the ability to determine what uses are defined by the rights must endure with the digital resource over its entire lifetime.

These five goals and the University of California Digital Library context will be the determining factors for decisions about the rights framework and for making specific decisions about rights.

Rights Management Implementation Criteria

In addition to conformance to our general principles, any rights regime should adhere to the following criteria when considering its implementation. Contributions should be:

• Indemnifiable: Content should arrive with provisions that protect hosting institution from vulnerability arising from unwarranted use of the resource.
• Manageable: Contributions should not be burdened with excessive administrative needs or restrictions over the long term.
• Maximally accessible: Resources should be available to the widest audience.
• Transparent: Information about terms and conditions of storage and use should be easily understood by users.
• Well-documented: Sufficient information necessary for transmitting permissions and restrictions to others should accompany resource.
• Affordable: Resources should not place unwanted financial burdens on content owners, users, or archives.
• Effective: Resources should promote successful achievement of principles and goals.

Rights management guidelines should be flexible and be useful to projects with different aims and technologies, and under differing circumstances. To be successful any program must be simple to communicate and comprehend.

The Rights Framework

The rights framework must support a general view of rights that can be employed as part of the enterprise-wide business environment. The framework is informed by principles and by the context in which enterprise operates. While the framework must encompass all projects, it also must be flexible and extensible; actual rights needs and expressions will vary across projects. A primary goal for the framework is to bring about consistency within different projects without sacrificing flexibility. The framework must be integrated throughout the digital library workflow and provide projects with the information needed to define the appropriate rights at each phase. To serve the goal of providing virtual uniform databases of content, the framework must also define a minimum set of machine-readable data elements that can be incorporated into the stored resource files.

The Stages of Rights

The document Digital Rights Management by Intrallect for the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) proposes six stages of rights that correspond approximately to the digital resource workflow. The first three stages make up the policy creation phase of digital rights management; the last three stages are the policy projection. The table below lists those six rights using the JISC document terminology and gives a UC-centered interpretation for each one.

	JISC Report	UC View
DRM Policy Creation	Recognition of rights: Awareness of who the rights holders are and of any license conditions.	This corresponds to the education function of raising awareness of rights among contributors to and users of the Digital Library.
	Assertion of rights: a legal framework in which people and organizations can assert their rights in a form that is defendable under law.	The legal framework is based on U.S. copyright law, the contracts that the institution enters into with vendors and providers of information, and other legal and policy issues like privacy and confidentiality.
	Expression of rights: traditionally a copyright statement, but with a current need for machine-to-machine expression.	A generalizable solution requires a standard set of rights metadata and consistent input of those metadata.
DRM Policy Projection	Dissemination of rights: ensures that wherever a resource is described its rights are also described.	Dissemination means that rights expression for a digital resource must always travel with that resource.
	Exposure of rights: the user sees the rights information with the related resource.	Exposure of rights is a function of the user interface. It can be a link to a rights statement or a simple display of rights with the resource. The key element is that the user is made aware of the rights and of the user's responsibilities in relation to those rights.
	Enforcement of rights: protective measures to prevent infringement and actions to take if infringement has taken place.	Enforcement will consist of access rules and systems, authentication, and user education.

The JISC report focuses on networked education functions, not on libraries. Two other factors are required by the library function: space and time. In order to fulfill the policy of acquiring and archiving digital resources for the long-term support of the education and research activities of the University, each of the functions that support these six stages must be viable over the longest time frame that the Digital Library can conceivably plan for, and must be functional over the full variety of systems that are part of and interact with the enterprise-wide business environment of the University of California.

Next Steps

The work of the Rights Management Group (RMG) will be to develop a concrete plan for the three recommendations creation stages: Recognition, Assertion, and Expression. This means that the group will focus on the development of policies and procedures that guide decision making at all levels, education of contributors, analysis of the legal aspects of Digital Library projects - both law and licensing - and the definition of a minimal set of metadata elements for the expression of rights.

Implementation of the policy projection stages depend on specific applications, i.e. how the rights metadata travels with the resource and how the user is exposed to the rights information through the user interface. The RMG will provide some policies and requirements for these three stages without defining how the technology will implement these policies.

All of the stages will incorporate the general policies relating to rights, and will be measured in terms of their viability over space and time. Because the framework cannot anticipate all future needs for rights expression, it will be focused on providing the basis for decisions rather than specific solutions. The RMG will also work on specific solutions with current projects, which can then become models for future work.

The RMG anticipates several tangible results of their efforts:

1. A portfolio of policies and procedures that will assist those charged with making decisions regarding recognition, assertion, and expression of rights data. This will take the form of a set of scenarios with a compilation of guidelines, questions, and problem areas that have been evaluated by the RMG.
2. A set of model submission agreements that provide the necessary legal and procedural elements to act as templates for project managers and document creators.
3. Creation of a basic set of data elements for management of rights metadata. Included will be an analysis of the fit of major schema to our needs.
4. Recommendations for education about rights and risk management. Utilizing the knowledge and materials gained from the rights management evaluation process, the RMG will assist with necessary education and training about rights issues and management.