Open Rights System
ORS Contents
Page
1.
Scope and Objectives
3
2.
Consortium and Roles of Participants
3
3.
Product Developed and Work Carried Out
3
4.
Results
4
4.1
ORS Portal
4
4.2
ORS Management modules.
6
4.3
ORS interfaced standard database structure
7
5.
Obstacles
8
6.
Dissemination of Results
8
7.
Plans for Commercial Exploitation
8
7.1
ORS Phase II
8
7.2
ORS Phase III
9
8.
Generic issues/Suggestions for Community Initiatives
9
ORS Open Rights System
Open Rights System is a project of Multimedia Rights Clearance Systems (MMRCS)
supported by the INFO 2000 programme of the European Commission.
1.
Scope and Objectives
The aim of ORS is to construct a prototype software which helps to enable users of
Intellectual Property rights to obtain from rights holders or their representatives the
necessary authorisation for such uses without imposing to both users and right holders
any form of management of these rights. ORS is therefore compatible with the wish of
some right holders to directly manage their rights and with the wish of other right holders
to manage their rights collectively through one stop shops.
Although the project is designed to cover all objects or works protected by Intellectual
Property Rights (text, still images, moving images, recorded music, films and audiovisual works), the test of the prototype software has been made for the clearance of
rights of phonogram producers only.
2.
Consortium and Roles of Participants
The consortium created for the ORS project includes representatives of users (CRYO
Interactive and SELL) and representatives of right holders (IMAGIA, PPL, SCPP,
SIMIM).
CRYO Interactive is one of the main multimedia and games software developer
in France.
SELL represents French multimedia and games software producers covering some
95% of the French market
IMAGIA and SIMIM are Belgian collecting societies of music video producers and
phonogram producers.
PPL is a collecting society of phonogram producers of the United Kingdom.
SCPP is a French collecting society of phonogram producers.
All partners played a role in the prototype software design and development as well as
in the test of the prototype software. SCPP is the co-ordinator of the project.
3.
Product Developed and Work Carried Out
The ORS prototype software is made of three essential parts:

A portal, where users are helped to find the right holders organisations, called
“entities, that can either give them the right clearance they are looking for or
supply them with information on the right holders that can give them such rights
clearance.
The portal also handles some files that makes the use of ORS more comfortable such
as: user file, wish list (objects or works identified in an entity database), projects list
(information on the use for which the rights clearance is requested), requests status
(enables the user to follow the status of the requests for rights clearance he has made
to the different entities).

an ORS interfaced standard database structure, that allows the functioning of the
ORS management modules with many different entities managing many different
rights using many different database structures.

the ORS management modules, that allows the user, for an ORS interfaced entity,
to :
–
search objects or works in the entity database,
–
identify objects or works in the entity database (consultation of excerpts or
small size reproductions),
–
receive an information on the rights clearance tariff (if applicable),
–
enter into a negotiation on the terms of the rights clearance (if it is not
based on a tariff),
–
eases the contact with the right holder (in case the right holder manages
directly the rights clearance)
–
request the rights clearance to the entity (when it is managed by the entity)
–
automatically generate a draft contract at the entity level,
–
receive an information on the status of its requests sent to the different
entities.
The ORS prototype software has been developed by Audiosoft, a Swiss company
specialised in Digital Rights Management Systems.
The work has been performed from December 98 to November 2000. Dissemination
activities are scheduled until February 2001.
Searches were made by SCPP, PPL and SIMIM to identify and obtain information on all
entities collectively managing Intellectual Property Rights in the European Union and
EFTA countries. The results were checked by sister organisations operating in these
countries.
The test of the prototype software was made initially on an AUDIOSOFT server in
Switzerland, then with the portal located at the AUDIOSOFT site in Switzerland and the
ORS entity software installed on an SCPP server in France and finally on a single SCPP
server. The test was performed on an extract of the SCPP database of phonograms
enriched by sound clips and record sleeves for some phonograms.
The test was also performed on the full SCPP database of phonograms. During the
process of the development of ORS, the SCPP database of phonograms and
videograms were made available on line on the SCPP Web Site.
4.
Results
4.1
ORS Portal
The ORS portal enables the user to identify 92 entities managing rights or having
information on rights holders for the following countries and type of objects or works:
Countries
AUSTRIA
BELGIUM
DENMARK
FINLAND
FRANCE
GERMANY
GREECE
ICELAND
IRELAND
ITALY
LUXEMBURG
NETHERLANDS
NORWAY
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
SWEDEN
SWITZERLAND
UNITED KINGDOM
OBJECTS OR WORKS
AUDIOVISUAL WORK
DRAMATIC WORK
LITERARY WORK
MULTIMEDIA WORK
MUSICAL WORK
PHONOGRAM
SHEET MUSIC
VIDEOGRAM
VISUAL ARTS WORK
Detailed information is supplied on line to the user on each entity such as physical
address, phone and fax number, e-mail address, URL, contact person info. More
countries and type of objects or works can be added very easily.
The entities currently available through the portal are:
ADGP
AEPI
AGEDI
AGICOA (Germany)
AKM
ALCS
ANGOA
AUDIOGEST LTD
AUSTRO-MECHANA
BONO
BUMA
BUS
CCLI
CEDAR
CMMV
COPY-DAN
DACS
DPRS
EGEDA
GEMA
GRAMEX (Danemark)
GRAMEX (Finland)
GRAMMO
GUFA
GVL
GWFF
ICLA
IFPI (Finland)
IFPI SCHWEIZ
IFPI (Sweden)
IFPI VIDEO (SWITZE)
IMAGIA
IMRO
KODA
KUVASTO
LINO
LSG
MCCI
MCPS (Ireland)
MCPS (U.K.)
NCB
NLA
NORWACO
OSDEL
PPI
PPL
PROCIREP
PROLITTERIS
PRS
SAA
SABAM
SACD
SACD (BELGIUM)
SACEM
SADH
SAIF
SCAM
SCAM (BELGIUM)
SCELF
SCF
SCPP
SDRM
SENA
SESAM
SFF
SFH / IFPI
SGAE
SIAE
SIMIM
SMCC
SOFAM
SPA
SPPF
SSA
STEF
STEMRA
STIM
SUISA
SUISSIMAGE
TEOSTO
TONO
UNIVERSAL EDITION
VBK
VDFS
VEGAP
VEVAM
VFF
VG BILD-KUNST
VG WORT
VGF
VPL
4.2
ORS Management modules.
The management modules of ORS allows the following functionalities, for an ORS
interfaced entity such as SCPP.

search of objects or works in the entity database using up to 5 criteria,

identification of the object or work by text description and by samples,

identification of the rights (types of uses) managed by the entity for each object or
work

identification of the right holders of the object or work,

inclusion of the identified objects or works in a filed “wish list” to be used for a
future acquisition of rights

consultation of tariffs, for those types of uses for which a tariff applies,

request for an acquisition of rights (right clearance) when a tariff is applicable.

request for a negotiation of a licence fee when the type of use is managed by the
entity but is not subject to a public tariff.
When making such a request, the user can use information priority stored in a filed
“projects list” and included it in his request for information. This avoids the user entering
several times the same information about one or several of his projects for which he
needs to clear the rights with several entities.

Automatic generation of e-mail to the user to confirm the receipt by the entity of
his request for acquisition of rights

Automatic notification of the request received by the entity to the person in charge
of managing the related use in the entity,

Automatic generation of a draft contract for the requested use at the entity level.
The draft contract can be edited by the entity before being sent to the user,

Follow up of his requests status per entity such as :
–
Request processed
–
Draft contract sent
–
Contract signed
–
Payment outstanding
–
Object to the delivered
–
Request completed
–
Request cancelled.
Some functionalities that were included in the initial project plan have voluntarily not
been developed :

storage of objects existing in a digital format,

secured payment of rights,

delivery of objects existing in a digital format.
For security reasons, it is expected that those entities that would put in place such
functionalities would like to select directly the related software. There were therefore
high chances that the functionalities developed by ORS would not have been used by
the entities.
4.3
ORS interfaced standard database structure
In order to allow the portal files and the ORS management modules to be able to work
with the very different databases of their very different entities, an ORS interfaced
standard database structure was developed.
This ORS interfaced standard database structure replaces the interfacing software that
was to be developed for each entity in the initial project plan.
The solution adopted by the ORS partners increases the flexibility of use of the ORS
software and its capacity to adapt to different types of databases.
The ORS portal files and management modules do not interact with the established
database of the entity but with a partial copy of that database reclassified according to
the ORS standard database structure.
The entity that wants to join ORS does not need to change its ancient database
structure in order to do so. It just needs to make the necessary links between the fields
of its database and the one in the ORS standard database structure and make a copy of
its existing database into the ORS standard database format.
The ORS interfaced standard database structure has been developed for objects such
as phonograms but has been designed in such a way that other types of objects or
works can be handled with the same management modules.
For example, the ORS search module can use up to five criteria.
The software recognises the five criteria that have a different value with different type of
entities:
ORS Software criteria
field
Criteria 1
Criteria 2
Criteria 3
Criteria 4
Criteria 5
Phonogram entity field
value
Track title
Artist
Sound Carrier Barcode
Not used
Not used
Visual arts Work entity
field value
Authors
Title
Subject
Type
Not used
The criteria that are not used by some types of entities do not appear on the search
screen.
The development of the ORS interfaced standard database for visual arts works would
just need to create the fields not already created for other type of objects or works and
indicate the value of some ”agnostic” fields.
5.
Obstacles
The initial intention was to create an interface to other organisations’ software, enabling
users to continue their search by transferring from one database to another. As the
project progressed, the participants found it more practical and cost-effective to
reclassify a partial copy of each rights holder database according to the standard ORS
structure, using a series of simple links. This enables organisations to join ORS without
the need to change their current database structure.
6.
Dissemination of Results
The main dissemination actions have been made or are planned for the period
December 2000 – February 2001:
7.

presentation of the ORS prototype software at the performance rights committee
meeting of the IFPI on 4 December 2000 in Zurich, Switzerland. Representatives
from all European collecting societies for phonograms producers attended the
presentation together with representatives from the major record companies and
senior executives of the IFPI.

Presentation of the ORS prototype software to representatives of SESAM (one
stop shop for authors rights) and PROCIREP (Film and audiovisual producers
rights) on January 5 and 9, 2001.

Presentation of the ORS software at the multimedia Fair MILIA in Cannes on 12
February 2001.

These presentations are supported by commercial brochures and a follow up of
the interest of the ORS project for the parties attending.
Plans for Commercial Exploitation
The partners of ORS have agreed on the principle of continuing the ORS project after
the completion of the prototype software (phase 1).
The future plans of ORS include 2 phases:


7.1
ORS phase II: Actual software development  2001
ORS phase III: Actual exploitation of ORS  2002
ORS Phase II
This phase should be dedicated to the development of an actual ORS software from the
current ORS prototype software.
All partners of ORS phase I (Prototype software development) are free to participate or
not participate to the following phases.
New partners are welcome with a preference for organisations managing rights from
other type of works or objects than phonogram or music videogram.
The partners are to make their final decision on ORS phase II after the MILIA
presentation in February 2001
7.2
ORS Phase III
This phase is the actual exploitation of ORS. Again, new partners that did not participate
in the first 2 phases are welcome to participate to the actual exploitation of ORS.
8.
Generic issues/Suggestions for Community Initiatives
The support from the European Commission has been instrumental in the decision of
the boards of the partners organisations to develop the ORS project (phase I –
Prototype software).
An additional support from the commission for the actual ORS software project (ORS
phase II) would also be instrumental in the decision to be made by the boards of the
ORS partners organisations regarding the launch of ORS phase II.
During the development of the ORS project, SCPP has made extensive research on the
European Union collecting societies and their on line activities. Out of more than 100
collecting societies, none had in place any form of on line rights clearance systems.
With the sole exception of SCPP databases, no other rights database is currently
available on line.
The SCPP database has been made available on line in December 1999 as a part of
the ORS project.
Without the initiative of the European Commission to launch the call for proposals for
MMRCS (Multimedia Rights Clearance Systems) within the INFO 2000 programme,
there are high chances that the only right database available on line would be those of
some U.S. performance societies and that the plans of the ORS partners for an on line
clearance of rights would be in their infancy.
The partners of ORS therefore thank the European Commission for its remarkable
initiative and welcome its continuation in the new European Commission planned
programme COM 2000.
Paris, December 14, 2000.
Marc GUEZ
SCPP(Co-ordinator)