Re: [rights] TIME OUT, PLEASE

[Aaron Burstein <burstein@boalthall.berkeley.edu>]

Karl,

The Samuelson Clinic responded to the RLTC's call for rights language
requirements because we understood that rights languages will play a
central role in the behavior of DRM systems. Our participation has been 

consistent with the Charter's direction "to address the needs of the 

diverse communities that have recognized the need for a rights 

language." As our initial requirements submission, our parsed and
categorized requirements, and our participation in the RLTC have shown,
we feel that XrML falls short of supplying the public with the means to
protect its rights and expectations under copyright law.

We have therefore viewed our participation in the RLTC as an opportunity
to incorporate these rights and expectations explicitly and saliently
into a REL. The REL has benefited from the hours that the TC and
particularly the Requirements SC have devoted to reviewing and
explaining these requirements. There were some large differences of
opinion and perspective, but we were making progress in understanding
each other.

Perhaps our requirements have injected more diversity into the RLTC than 

the framers of the Charter anticipated. It is nevertheless regrettable 

that Karl Best has suggested that SC members who have in good faith 

sought to review, question, and revise the contours of a developing REL 

should resign from the SC. This proposal is even more puzzling in light 

of the lively discussion at the F2F meeting, which resulted in an 

amendment to the Charter. It is also regrettable that the RLTC has 

elected to set aside our requirements. Even those requirements that were 

discussed at length and resolved within the SC were expunged from the 

requirements document. 

Although Karl's suggested approach might lend the appearance of a stable 

set of requirements and expedite the delivery of "consensus" 

requirements, it buries a larger problem and dismisses the time and 

effort of a community newly engaged in this process. The expectations of 

many of the people who will be affected by XrML or the OASIS REL are 

unlikely to change, and copyright law is not going away. A rights 

language, and the systems that implement that language, will have to 

confront these facts sooner or later.  They will only be able to do so 

if they have been constructed upon a framework that is robust enough to 

meet the needs of all users.

Dean Rowan
Aaron Burstein
Deirdre Mulligan
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Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic