Seth Finkelstein's Essays - E-book rights, or Brave New WIPO

[Concerning a scheme for Electronic Book Rights]
[Posted to a computers and policy list]

Date:         Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:19:06 -0500
From:         Seth Finkelstein
Subject:      E-book rights, or Brave New WIPO

        I've been skmming through the specs at http://www.ebxwg.com/
It's like someone at the Cato Institute went absolutely wild. Amazing stuff.
Some choice excerpts:

Electronic books may be able to avoid the fine print and warnings by
making automatic what you can and cannot do with a copyrighted work.

 ...

* CopyCount - Number of copies of the content object the holder of the
   voucher is allowed to view/lend/give/sell.

* Rights - Various rights that the holder of the voucher has:

* Lendable - Whether the holder can lend the voucher.

* Givable - Whether the holder can give the voucher to another entity.

* Sellable - Whether the holder can sell the voucher to another entity.

* LendingTimeout - Amount of time the holder is allowed to borrow the voucher.

* PersonalUseCopies - Maximum number of personal use copies per
   PersonalUseTime.

* PersonalUseTime - Day, Week, Month, Year.

* PersonalUseCopySize - Paragraph, page, chapter, whole.

...

3.1.5 Rights - Basic rights element The basic rights define whether
    the owner has the right to give, lend, and/or sell copies of the
    voucher.  There are no attributes currently defined for the Rights
    start-tag.

The values in the content of the Rights element are separated by
commas.  The allowable values for the content of the Rights element are:

* Lendable - The e-book can be lent to another consumer or library.

* Givable - The e-book can be given to another consumer or library.

* Sellable - The e-book can be sold to another consumer, distributor,
   or bookseller. For example:

<Rights> Lendable, Givable, Sellable </Rights>

...

3.1.7 PersonalUse - Personal use element If this element is missing,
    no personal use rights are allowed. The PersonalUse element is a
    container element for the actual personal use rights elements.
    The personal use rights specify how often and what quantity of
    information can be copied (or printed) from the e-book.  The
    personal use rights elements are:

* Interval - The interval during which personal use copies and/or
   printouts are tracked.

The choices are: Day, Week, Month, Year.

* NumberAllowed - The number of personal use copies and/or printouts
   that can be madeduring Interval.

* CopyUnit - A value indicating what portions of the work can be
   copied and/or printed.

The choices are: Paragraph, Page, Chapter, EntireWork.

...

EBX also designed to provide "electronic rights management
information" as defined in the World Intellectual Property
Organization Copyright Treaty [WIPO96].