Rights Metadata for Digital Collections

Peter HirtleMetadata Working Group

31 March 2006

Why Rights Metadata?

•Helps with management•Aids users•Protects Cornell

3 Aspects of Digital Rights Metadata

•Status of the original item–How can you digitize it?

•Information for users–What copyright allows–What the repository is willing to license

•Rights in the metadata?

Management data in digitization

•Public domain–Federal work?–Pre-1923 US work?–Non-renewed work?

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm

Permission not needed?

•Unpublished work digitized for preservation

•Published work digitized as a replacement copy

–Record information on the search for an unused replacement

•TEACH Act digitization

Each of these has specific limits on access

Fair use?

•504(c)(2) safe harbor when library staff “had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her use of the copyrighted work was a fair use.”

•Need to document the fair use assessment

•Where to record it?

Orphan Work?

•New legislation will likely require a reasonable search for an owner

•How and where to record search information?

Permission

•Contact information for the rights holder

•What does your license permit?

Not just a digital problem…

Is it…

•African American Lives (DVD) for $34.95?

“may be viewed only in a home or in a face-to-face classroom situation as part of a systematic educational program.”

Or is it…

• African American Lives (DVD) for $64.95?

– From PBS Education“may be shown in a classroom, screened by a public group that is not charged for the viewing, or transmitted on a closed-circuit system within a building or single campus.”

Information for users

•Who currently owns the copyrights

–Copyright Office isn’t doing this•When they will expire•What additional obligations the institution may impose

–As owner of the physical item (separate from copyright)

How is this information expressed today?

•“Terms and conditions” for a site

–Example: Guidelines for Using Text and Images from Cornell Digital Library Collections

How is this information expressed today?

•“Terms and conditions” for a site

•General statement on copyright status

–Examples: Library of Congress, Kheel Center

–Note: informs and protects

From the “Prosperity and Thrift” web site, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/ccres.html

•“Terms and conditions” for a site•General statement on copyright status

•Sometimes, item information–Example: KMODDL–Note: no statement on original

copyright, collection permissions

How is this information expressed today?

Possible standard solutions

•OAI Rights: http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/guidelines-rights.htm

– Focuses on rights in the metadata• METSRights: draft METS rights declaration schema

http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/news080503.html

– Simple rights declaration statement

Publisher standards

•Examples:–ODRL, MPEG-21 (using xRML)–ERMI–DLF/EDItEUR/NISO/PLS working group on rights expression languages

•Focus is on license terms, not copyright

Creative Commons

•Standardized way of expressing rights

•Based on copyright ownership

User-focused approaches

•Proponents:–Karen Coyle in Oct 2005 First

Monday–Elizabeth Townsend Gard (lawyer)

•Argument: provide users with all the information they need to use a work with that work

•Downside: Another 20 metadata elements, libraries interpret ownership

Conclusions

•Tracking copyright status is important

•Part of a larger problem•Standards are emerging