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Subject: RE: [rights-requirements] General permissions expressions in XrML
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Hmmm.
One question was asked, but a rather different one was answered.
You are confusing and mixing the issue of the ability to express an intended semantic in the syntax of XrML with the issue of how such syntactic entities are reasonably distributed and disseminated. Both are important questions, but are separate and distinct issues.
With respect to the latter of these issues, while you bring up many problematic dissemination mechanisms, and articulate well why they are problematic, you miss other important possibilities and choices, among them the inclusion, pre-canned, in systems using XrML to control the execution of certain actions of certain useful and / or obligatory Grants or Licenses.
Are we agreed, then, that there are no expressiveness issues in XrML, only dissemination ones? I, for one, would certainly agree that more discussion about the dissemination issue would be useful and productive.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
Here are some thoughts on an issue that we discussed in the last two calls.
1. We have been asked by the SC to answer the question: "What do we need that we cannot express today in the syntax" of XrML?
2. Example: a. A purchases a sound recording from B. b. A wants to excerpt parts of the sound recording for use in a published review of the recording. This example requires that A be able to (1) take the excerpt, (2) incorporate it into his review document, and (3) publish the review. A's readers then require permission to listen to the excerpt.
3. Conversations in the SC, in related contexts, have suggested that XrML can express the permissions that A's use requires AS FOLLOWS a. A may obtain these rights either by direct grant from B, the rule maker; or, b. A may "self-issue" a set of rules that permit the relevant exercises; or, c. A may obtain the permissions he requires from a trusted third party, such as the United States government.
These options may be theoretically available, but assuming they are, using XrML in this way is practically and politically impossible. The reasons for this are as follows:
d. (Regarding 4(a).) One way to characterize A's predicament is that of a market failure. Relying on B's willingness to grant permissions to cure a market failure, when B is the cause of that market failure, is absurd. e. (Regarding 4(b).) A's ability to express the required permissions is separate from A's ability to exercise those permissions. A cannot exercise the permissions that A issues to himself unless A is trusted by B to issue these permissions. In effect, this alternative reduces to the preceding one. f. (Regarding 4(c).) Once again, this alternative requires the trust of B, the rule maker and it requires, in this particular instance, the government to craft REL rule sets about particular copyrighted works arguably in particular contexts. Sending A to any third party for permissions imposes burdens of cost, delay, and loss of privacy on A. The notion that the Government could or would express REL's granting the relevant permissions in this context is absurd. Involving the Government in this way is both politically and practically untenable.
4. Thus this question and example highlight the distinction between what is theoretically expressible and what is practically expressible. We find XrML wanting in its practical ability to support rights associated with the use and exploration of copyrighted works.
5. To the extent XrML is offered as an all purpose rights expression language itmust provide practical not purely theoretical support for the expression of rights in domains it intends to support. If XrML's authorization algorithm allowed expressions of context to enter the authorization decision, this kind of problem could likely be solved, or at least alleviated. If context is ignored in authorization evaluations, however, a class of rights (expressed as permissions), similar to the case described above, is practically impossible to express.
Aaron Burstein Dean Rowan
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