Parallel Effort?

[Patrick Durusau <pdurusau@emory.edu>]

Greetings!

Thought everyone would be interested to learn of yet another digital 
rights standards effort! This one from the IEEE.

Looks to me like we need some serious dicussion of coordination if not 
combination into a single forum simply to avoid duplication of effort. 
No reason for multiple, possibly inconsistent terminologies, ontologies 
(although I usually resist the common abuse of that word by the CS 
folks), and strategies for digital rights management.

 I am sure some members of the Rights TC are old enough to remember the 
horrors of multiple versions of DOS and I am not looking forward to 
repeating that experience with digital rights. A common forum, however 
the technology shakes out, would seem to be a first step in that direction.

(Yes, for anyone looking for a fight, I don't think there is a single 
answer, patent or technology that encompasses all of the digital rights 
area. But we don't have to settle that question before agreeing that it 
is pointless to have that fight in every country, in every standards or 
related body, until the next wave of technology makes that dispute 
irrelevant. Not that being irrelevant would stop the argument, it would 
just mean fewer and fewer people would be interested. The winner in that 
case being the last person to discover that no one else was interested. 
Called wining by default. Market share = 1 unit.)

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Patrick

***********IEEE effort on digital rights*********************

Context (Extract from the Project Definition Report)

In the context of the IEEE-LTSC, an additional workgroup has been created to
define a DREL standard. The purpose of project that this workgroup will
undertake is to facilitate the creation, management and delivery of learning
objects by technology that implements digital rights expression languages.
This project will produce a recommended practice or guide identifying
digital rights requirements for learning technologies. These requirements
will be aligned with the most widely known standards-based specifications
for digital rights expression languages that are being adopted or developed
by international, regional, national and private organizations and
consortia.

The recommended practice or guide will determine what, if any, extensions
are needed so that these digital rights expression languages can meet the
identified requirements. The working group intends to submit a recommended
practice or guide for balloting within one year.

(More at http://ltsc.ieee.org/sg1/ieee_drel_pdr_030404.pdf)



-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
pdurusau@emory.edu
Co-Editor, ISO Reference Model for Topic Maps