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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? > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an > initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> > > The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription > manager: <http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/index.php> > > >
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