[announce] OASIS Forms TC to Advance XML Rights Language

[Carol Geyer <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to Advance XML Rights Language

ContentGuard, HP, Microsoft, Reuters, Verisign, and Others Collaborate
on Standard to Express Usage and Access Rights Across Industries

Boston, MA, USA; 2 April 2002 -- OASIS, the XML interoperability
consortium, today announced its members have formed the OASIS Rights
Language Technical Committee to advance a common XML rights language
standard for the digital rights management (DRM) marketplace. Their work
will provide a universal method for specifying and managing rights
associated with all kinds of resources including digital content and web
services. The OASIS specification will support a wide variety of
business models, expressing both simple and complex rights and promoting
interoperability between systems regardless of platform, media type or
format.

"There is a significant need across many industries for DRM standards to
assist institutions in managing their digital assets such as content or
web services", said Hari Reddy of ContentGuard, chair of the OASIS
Rights Language Technical Committee. "Our work in establishing a
standard rights language will address the need for interoperability
between the components and systems that manage the creation,
distribution and consumption of digital assets within and across
different industries."

ContentGuard intends to submit its eXtensible rights Markup Language(tm)
(XrML(tm)) to the 0ASIS Rights Language Technical Committee as a
starting point for this work. XrML, recently selected as the base
architecture for the MPEG-21 Rights Expression Language, can be used in
content-centric as well as service-based business models.

"The use of DRM technologies for the distribution of content and
services holds great potential, and putting DRM-related standards in
place is essential for the success of DRM, " said Joshua Duhl, an IDC
Contributing Analyst. "The contribution of XrML to OASIS is an important
step in establishing a standard rights language for DRM. "

Members of the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee include
ContentGuard, Hewlett-Packard Company, Microsoft, Reuters, VeriSign
Inc., and other OASIS members. Participation remains open to all
organizations and individuals interested in advancing a common rights
language. Information on joining OASIS can be found on
http://www.oasis-open.org/join.

"The OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee is an important step
towards consistency in the area of rights expression -- a key to
establishing interoperability for DRM systems and services," said John
Erickson, systems program manager for digital rights management, HP
Labs. "HP has been involved in a number of industry initiatives that are
crucial to the evolution of DRM and is pleased to be a sponsoring member
of this technical committee."


About OASIS
OASIS (www.oasis-open.org), a not-for-profit, global consortium, drives
the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards.
Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight,
open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite
disparate efforts. OASIS is the home for XML conformance, Web services,
security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and
other interoperability specifications development.

OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100
countries around the world. OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor
ebXML, a global framework for e-business data exchange. OASIS operates
XML.org, a community clearinghouse for XML application schemas,
vocabularies and related documents. OASIS hosts The XML Cover Pages, an
online reference collection for interoperable markup language standards.


For more information:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS www.oasis-open.org
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209