The IPTC has created a RightsML Generator tool that shows how easy it can be to generate simple RightsML documents expressing a range of permissions and obligations around the use of media content.

RightsML is the IPTC’s standard for expressing rights usage statements that can be used for all types of media content, from images and video clips through to AI data, data sets and 3D models. Since version 2.0, RightsML has been based on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)‘s  Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL); in fact IPTC members worked closely with the W3C to create the current version of ODRL to align with RightsML.

A common complaint among users and potential users of RightsML and ODRL was that it is too complicated to be implemented easily. To answer these issues, we wanted to show that describing rights in RightsML can be relatively simple, especially for common news workflows and rights statements such as:

• “this content may be distributed in all countries except the UK” or “only in the UK” (a common use case for news and image licensing agencies that have operations in one country but allow other agencies to distribute their content in other countries)
• “this content may be published any time after XX date” (a simple “embargo”)
• “this content may be published any time until YY date” (a content expiry notice, which might apply to customers with certain types of licence)
• “this content may be published only on mobile platforms” or “only in print” (based on licensing agreements)
• “this content may be published only to those who have paid a licensing fee”
• or a combination of the above constraints.

To demonstrate these possibilities, we have created a simple form-based tool that generates the relevant RightsML/ODRL document. The user can choose whether to express the RightsML statements in various RDF formats: Turtle, RDF/XML and JSON-LD. 

The RightsML generator tool can be accessed at https://iptc.org/std/RightsML/generator/.

Please contact IPTC or post on the public iptc-rightsml discussion group with any feedback or comments. We would love to hear from current and potential users of RightsML to learn how we can make the ecosystem easier for you.