From Narrative Contracts to Electronic Licenses: A Guided Translation Process for the Case of Audiovisual Content Management

Electronic licenses can represent the relevant information conveyed in narrative contracts. A standard rights expression language (REL) license is extended here to represent the typical clauses found in the audiovisual market contracts, and a method is proposed to make this conversion. The extension is needed since the current REL does not support all the required rights and conditions. The translation process is done in two steps; in a first level the contract is organized in a structured XML format, and in the second level an electronic license is produced. This is done with a computer guided process whose resulting electronic license will be able to govern in the required manner audiovisual content distribution systems.