Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) Case Study
NLA Business Context
Under mandate from Publishers in the UK, the NLA provides services to Media Monitoring Organisations (MMOs). Print and Web content is provided to MMOs in text (proprietary XML and IPTC's NewsML-G2 formats), PDF and HTML formats. MMOs deliver services to their clients by searching the text provided by the NLA and finding articles relevant to their client’s brief. Storing, indexing, evaluating, summarising and manipulating this content is a requirement of their business model. MMOs and their clients are both licensed by the NLA, and MMOs are required to provide reporting of the content made available to their clients. MMOs are also required to adhere to complex license terms associated with storing and making Publisher content available as part of their services. An extensive and onerous annual audit process takes place with all licensed MMOs to ensure all licence terms are being appropriately adhered to.
The NLA also provide services for Publishers using the content ingested into the NLA database. Most UK publishers now use the NLA to provide content to third parties on their behalf. This service utilises the same architecture used to service the MMOs and is becoming more widely utilised by Publishers. As web content becomes more important to aggregators, this service is expected to grow significantly.
Content sources
Publishers acquire content from multiple sources. Most content is created by internal staff, but additional content comes from sources outside the Publisher. This can include freelance journalists and photographers or news agencies. When content is purchased from external sources there is naturally a contract in place which indicates usage rights or constraints on the usage of the content. For example, some content may only be able to be included in a specific Publisher product for a certain amount of time. Or perhaps an agency does not provide a Publisher with permission to send their content on to other third parties.
Third party aggregators
In addition to NLA supplying services under Publisher mandates to MMOs, Publishers also supply content direct to third party news aggregation services. Traditionally, these recipients received text-only content, but with digital content becoming more prominent in publishers repertoires, the variety of content and complexity of rights associated with this content has increased. Again, contracts exist between the Publisher and the third parties. These contracts dictate how, where and when the Publisher content can be used and may also place constraints on these third parties in regards to which organisations they can provide Publisher content to. Users of third party services do not have a contractual relationship with the publisher (or original source) of the content but a Publisher may wish to place constraints on these recipients and will do so within their contract with the third party.
Case Study Summary
A news story is written by a news agency, using a photographic image supplied by an image agency. The terms of supply by the image agency not only specify what rights the news agency has and does not have to use the image, but also what rights may be granted by the news agency to their publisher customers.
This news story is acquired by a news publisher for publication in its entirety in the printed edition of a newspaper. The terms of supply by the news agency not only specify what rights the publisher has and does not have to use the story, including the image, but also what rights may be granted by the publisher to their customers: intermediaries as well as end-users.
The NLA acts as an agent for the publisher to supply content to a number of third party news aggregators, under terms of supply that have been agreed between the publisher and each news aggregator. The supply of this news story to third party news aggregators is likely to be constrained in various ways that vary according to the third party aggregator concerned. The publisher must therefore communicate to NLA the rights that are to be granted to each third party news aggregator to whom NLA supplies content on behalf of the publisher.
Case Study Detail
In order to understand how the various usage rights and constraints can be communicated in this case, expressions in ODRL 2.0 XML syntax with RightsML semantics are provided for each stage in the supply of the news content from image agency to third party news aggregator. In practice it is unlikely that this method of communication will be used at each stage, but it is easier to derive the expression at each stage of supply if it is known what usage rights and constraints are inherited from earlier stages.
Communication between image agency and news agency
The image agency supplies the image to a news agency, and permits the news agency to use the image in creating a news story that is to be supplied to news publishers for publication in a printed newspaper. All other uses of the image, including all forms of digital publication, are prohibited.
The expression that would be communicated with the image could be constructed as follows. The first policy permits the news agency to include the image in a news story. The first policy also permits the image to be distributed to news publishers (as defined by the image agency), placing a duty on the news agency to attach the second policy to the news story that includes the image.
The second policy permits the news publisher that is the recipient of the news story from the news agency to use the story for the purpose of publishing in printed form.
<o:policy
uid="imageAgencyNewsAgencyPolicyUID"
type="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#set"
xmlns:o="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/2/"
xmlns:ov="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#"
xmlns:rml="http://iptc.org/std/RightsML/2011-10-07/"
xmlns:ia="http://imageagency.com/RightsMLvocabulary" >
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="imageUID" relation="ov:target"/>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryIncludingImageUID" relation="ov:output"/>
<o:action name="ov:include"/>
</o:permission>
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryIncludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:distribute"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:recipient" operator="ov:isA"
rightOperand="ia:newsPublisher"/>
<o:duty>
<o:action name="ov:nextPolicy"/>
<o:asset uid="imageAgencyNewsPublisherPolicyUID" relation="ov:target" />
</o:duty>
</o:permission>
</o:policy>
<o:policy
uid="imageAgencyNewsPublisherPolicyUID"
type="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#set"
xmlns:o="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/2/"
xmlns:ov="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#"
xmlns:rml="http://iptc.org/std/RightsML/2011-10-07/">
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryIncludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:use"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:purpose" operator="ov:eq" rightOperand="ia:printPublish"/>
</o:permission>
</o:policy>
NOTE – The second policy applies to the story including the image and not the image in isolation. The news publisher is not being permitted to use the image on its own, only in the context of being part of the story.
Communication between news agency and news publisher
The news agency supplies the story containing the image to a news publisher, and permits the news publisher to publish the story through both printed and online channels, but the story may only be published online for 24 hours. Given that the image agency only permits the image to be published in printed form, it must be excluded from the permission to publish the story through online channels. One approach for achieving this would be to supply two versions of the story: one with and one without the image, and associating the appropriate permissions and constraints with each version.
<o:policy
uid="newsAgencyNewsPublisherPolicyUID"
type="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#set"
xmlns:o="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/2/"
xmlns:ov="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#"
xmlns:rml="http://iptc.org/std/RightsML/2011-10-07/"
xmlns:ia="http://imageagency.com/RightsMLvocabulary" >
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryIncludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:use"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:purpose" operator="ov:eq"
rightOperand="ia:printPublish"/>
</o:permission>
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryExcludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:use"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:purpose" operator="ov:eq"
rightOperand="ia:onlinePublish"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:elapsedTime" operator="ov:lteq" rightOperand="P24H"/>
</o:permission>
</o:policy>
An alternative approach would be to supply a single version of the story containing the image, but in this case there would need to be an explicit prohibition to use the image in any online publication, and it would need to be made explicit on the policy that the prohibition overrides the permission.
<o:policy
uid="newsAgencyNewsPublisherPolicyUID"
type="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#set"
xmlns:o="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/2/"
xmlns:ov="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#"
xmlns:rml="http://iptc.org/std/RightsML/2011-10-07/"
xmlns:ia="http://imageagency.com/RightsMLvocabulary"
conflict="o:prohibit" >
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryIncludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:use"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:purpose" operator="ov:eq"
rightOperand="ia:printPublish"/>
</o:permission>
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryIncludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:use"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:purpose" operator="ov:eq"
rightOperand="ia:onlinePublish"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:elapsedTime" operator="ov:lteq" rightOperand="P24H"/>
</o:permission>
<o:prohibition>
<o:asset uid="imageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:use"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:purpose" operator="ov:eq"
rightOperand="ia:onlinePublish"/>
</o:prohibition>
</o:policy>
Communication between news publisher and agent (NLA)
The news publisher makes the story available to NLA for supply to third party news aggregators, and uses RightsML to communicate the terms under which NLA is to supply it. In the first policy expressed below the news publisher instructs NLA only to supply the story to certain third party news aggregators, and constrains in what form the story is to be supplied to them. In the second policy expressed below the news publisher the usage rights and constraints that apply to a specific news aggregator.
<o:policy
uid="newsPublisherNLADistributionPolicyUID"
type="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#set"
xmlns:o="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/2/"
xmlns:ov="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#"
xmlns:rml="http://iptc.org/std/RightsML/2011-10-07/"
xmlns:ia="http://imageagency.com/RightsMLvocabulary"
conflict="o:prohibit" >
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryExcludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:asset uid="newsStoryTextExtractUID" relation="ov:output"/>
<o:action name="ov:extract"/>
<o:constraint name="ia:extractContents" operator="ov:IsAllOf"
rightOperand="ia:headline ia:first25Words"/>
</o:permission>
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryExcludingImageUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:distribute"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:recipient" operator="ov:eq" rightOperand="ia:customerX"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:dateTime" operator="ov:gteq"
rightOperand="ia:newsStoryPublicationDateTime + P24H"/>
</o:permission>
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryTextExtractUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="rml:distribute"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:recipient" operator="ov:eq" rightOperand="ia:customerY"/>
<o:duty>
<o:asset uid="newsPublisherCustomerYDistributionPolicyUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="ov:nextPolicy"/>
</o:duty>
</o:permission>
</o:policy>
<o:policy
uid="newsPublisherCustomerYDistributionPolicyUID"
type="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#set"
xmlns:o="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/2/"
xmlns:ov="http://w3.org/ns/odrl/vocab#"
xmlns:rml="http://iptc.org/std/RightsML/2011-10-07/"
xmlns:ia="http://imageagency.com/RightsMLvocabulary" >
<o:permission>
<o:asset uid="newsStoryTextExtractUID" relation="ov:target" />
<o:action name="ov:present"/>
<o:constraint name="rml:recipient" operator="ov:eq" rightOperand="ia:consumerA"/>
<o:constraint name="ov:elapsedTime" operator="ov:lteq" rightOperand="P28D"/>
</o:permission>
</o:policy>
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