The News Industry Need for Machine Readable Rights
Various news publishers have identified the ability to be able to express rights in a machine readable way as being a priority. In part, this reflects the fundamental changes that have been transforming the news industry. Once, an agency such as The Associated Press distributed content to editors at newspapers and broadcasters, who would select which items they would use. In the process of this selection, they would be able to read any editors' notes, which could include any restrictions that needed to be observed. However, increasingly, news outlets are fully automated, with very little - if any - editorial oversight of what is published. Amongst other things, this drives the need for the expression of rights and restrictions in a way that can be evaluated automatically. This automation would allow the editorial process to be more efficient. In general, an editor still needs to exercise their judgement as to whether a particular restriction applies in a particular context. But, automatic evaluation of rights and restrictions can identify the items that need those decisions, rather than having editors inspect every single item. (This exercise of editorial judgement means that these systems are not like DRM, in which particular actions are forbidden and typically enforced by the devices involved).

In the course of gathering the requirements for machnine-readable rights expression, the IPTC have gathered a number of use cases and case studies. If you would like to contribute further use cases, please get in touch.