GNM_RCS_Rights_Management_FS

• 1. .Introduction

     1. Purpose

GNM publishes content in various Guardian media and needs to keep track of the rights in all published content so it has a clear record of whether and how it can be reused and/or resold.

The website is a key consumer of this rights data, and receives a feed of XML advising the status of content. The Syndication department is another key user, with rights in content being examined before each sale is made.

This document describes how the rights themselves are managed in RCS including the definitions of default rights profiles and how they are applied to commissions and contracts, and by inference to the content.

• 1. Scope

This document is intended as a high-level document outlining the main processing involved. It is not a detailed functional specification from which the system could have originally been developed.

The XML rights feed to the website is the subject of another document, and the checks performed by the Syndication department are also described in another document. This document focusses solely on the rights data itself and how it is generated and maintained.

Separate Technical specifications document the implementation of these functions.

• 1. .Specification

Over the years the rights model has changed innumerable times, but has now settled with a generic model. The Rights department can add rights to the model add properties to the rights, change lists of allowable values and so on.

The generic model is far more complex than previous static models, but it is far more stable and allows for much greater flexibility.

• 1. Rights

RCS manages a significant number of rights and the list changes over time.

Rights are grouped for presentation purposes into the following groupings

• • Audiovisual

  • Books

  • Core

  • Editorial digests

  • Archives

  • Merchandising

  • Redistribution

  • Interview

  • Digital Newsprint

The groups are displayed in this order, although this can be configured.

Display related information is also maintained, such as field prompts.

• 1. Rights properties

Each right may have many properties. A list of possible properties for any right is maintained. These properties are themselves defined as a value and a unit, allowed values for each if applicable, minimum and maximum values, a format if applicable (date/number/any) and whether the value is mandatory.

Other display related information such as field prompts are maintained too.

• 1. Rights and their properties

The specific rights properties applicable to each individual right are also maintained. Not all properties apply to all rights.

• 1. Rights profiles

To significantly simply the workload for users each commission and contracts is assigned a default set of rights which will be a copy of one of the rights profiles managed in RCS.

Right profiles are maintained for every combination of

• • Supplier type (New commission / Pre-existing stock / part-time staff / full-time staff)

  • Copyright agreement (Licence / Assignment)

  • Format (Text / Pictures / Illustrations / Audio / Video)

  • Agreement terms (Commission / Contract)

Each commission and contract can be identified as belonging to a combination of the above, and can therefore be assigned the correct profile. A multi-format contract is assigned a rights profile for each relevant content format.

Once a rights profile has been put live, and has been used, it can no longer be changed.

Rights profiles exist for a finite period. To change a current profile, the current rights profile must be end dated, and a revised profile created which shall apply from that date onwards. The revised profile can be copied from the existing profile and then changed.

Each rights profile lists all the relevant rights, and whether those rights are acquired or not by default. For each acquired right the properties associated with that right are listed and default values and units are defined as required.

• 1. Rights on commissions and contracts

     1. Rights defaults

Each Rights profile has many rights – 25 would not be unusual; and some rights have many properties – 20+ is common. The rights profile for a Text commission, with supplier type of New commission, agreed under Licence terms, at the time of writing, has 24 rights records and 446 rights property records i.e. a total of 470 records.

Whenever a new commission or contract is saved to the database the relevant set of rights and properties is duplicated onto that agreement, and is the starting point from which changes may be made to reflect what was agreed with the supplier.

• 1. Special terms

Special terms are free text terms that reflect a specific agreement between GNM and a contributor that cannot easily be reflected in the standard rights model. By default there are no special terms.

• 1. Standard vs. non-standard

If the rights acquired under any agreement (commission or contract) are modified to be different from the set of defaults upon which they were based, or if there are any special terms, then the rights are considered non-standard.

Non-standard rights are highlighted in RCS to ensure attention is drawn to them.

Some contributors always have the same non-standard terms, and so when entering new agreements with them the option to copy the previous set of rights is offered if that set of rights was non-standard.

• 1. Freelance charter

The freelance charter is a document on the website that details the current and past standard terms that GNM agrees with contributor. There are actually a series of documents that relate to different types of agreement. These documents, together with the rights maintained in RCS, and any actual signed contract or commission letter, provide the full picture of the rights agreed.

• 1. Rights approval

All commissions are queued for rights approval by the Rights department, whether they are standard or not. This ensures mistakes are picked up and corrected as soon as possible - some contributors always have standard rights, and so any non-standard rights need to be reset; some contributors always have non-standard rights and so standard rights need to be adjusted. This is most easily and efficiently done in the Rights department where the most knowledge of contributor agreements is concentrated.

The Rights department also need to review all contracts with regard to the rights agreed: these are also queued for review.

• 1. Rights on disregard reasons

Content may be disregarded, which means it is not linked back to a contributor via a commission of contract. The list of available reasons to disregard content, at the time of writing, is given below:

• • Await claim

  • Commissioned at zero fee

  • Contributor known, ask desk

  • Correction

  • Duplicate content

  • Fair dealing: criticism/review

  • Fair dealing: news reporting

  • GNM archive reprint

  • Guardian Books free serial

  • Historical Special

  • Historical freelance contrib

  • Letters

  • Multiple vox-pop

  • Non-GNM Marketing supplement

  • PR promotional material

  • Page furniture/junk

  • Paid in GEM / Oracle / misc

  • Photomontage

  • Screen grab

  • Social media content

  • Special projs (Wikileaks etc.)

  • Supplier free trial period

  • Unidentifiable - refer to desk

  • User-generated content

Some of these are restricted to a subset of content formats e.g. Screen grab only applies to images.

Each reason has its own rights profile.

• 1. Rights on content

The rights applicable to an item of content are the rights recorded against the commission or contract that the content has been matched to, or the rights of the disregard reason the content was linked to.

These rights are not copied to the content, but are instead referenced. This means that it is not possible to have different rights against different items of content under the same agreement.

End of Document