Re: Object identifiers

[John Erickson <JErickson@YBP.com>]

Hi!

Sally writes...

> As we think about how to express 'agreements' which contain the applicable
> subset of an object's terms and conditions in the context of a particular
> relationship with a particular user (or group of users), another issue has
> raised its head, as follows.  If (as I think we all agree) certain
> agreements may cover more than one object - several objects from one owner,
> from more than one owner (eg National Site Licences) or even a complete
> repertory (eg CCC/CLA blanket licences), then the identification of
> individual objects needs to be done in such a way that it is possible and
> easy to identify of group of objects to which one agreement applies.    

This is an interesting question. Essentially this is the case of an
object claiming a membership in a class, or family of objects. What
defines that class? To make this work, I think there must be an
agreement registry somewhere that defines many-to-many relationships
between agreements and registered objects.

1. In the case of a 'registered object,' many agreements are associated
with a particular object, enabling the owner to have many agreements for
many different license groups. Individual users or entire classes of
users would be members of such a license group. 

2. An individual agreement might have a family of objects associated
with it, each individually registered.

Thus the database supporting agreement management would contain, in the
agreement record, a manifest of objects covered under the agreement.
And, likewise, an individual object record would have a manifest of
agreements that pertained to the object. At the usage level, the terms
for a particular instance of use would be defined by the intersection of
the user's credentials, their usage (including setting, exact use, etc),
the object itself and the covering agreement. 

This assumes the availabity of one or more services that can perform the
role of 'agreement server,' to which object names and user credentials
can be presented and candidate agreements returned. This abstraction
requires everything to be 'registered' with a particular service.
Resolution might be particular to name space --- if a publisher assigned
a DOI using a particular internal namespace, the object might
automatically fall under a standing agreement. Or resolution could
transcend namespace. A bridge between URN and DOIs/Handles, forged right
now, might ensure the viability of that...but that's another discussion!

Have a GREAT one!

John

| John Erickson, Ph.D.   VP-Rights Technologies
| Yankee Rights Management
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