Examples for the Use of the Smart-License-Generator

For creating rights profiles in the context of B2B, B2C, C2C license transactions

1. License Profile for C2C and C2B Smart License

Alice is a hobby photographer and has just taken a great snapshot of a celebrity participating in the “March for Science” in New York. Her friends encourage her to – for the first time – offer the photo to news companies for commercial use.

Creating Rights Profiles

Alice opens the (imaginary) “OnSight”-app and creates an ISCC for her photo. After this initial step, she uses the rights generator in order to create a rights profile for her content (i.e. the photo):

Alice is the original creator (step 2).
She chooses a temporally unrestricted license (step 4) since she does not see the value in limiting the term of use. She also opts for a territorially unrestricted license (step 6) in order to reach a global audience.
Although Alice is aiming at professional media outlets to use her photo, she also welcomes the idea that private users might license her photo. But Alice does not feel comfortable of her content being altered or modified. So as a first step she selects “some private usage rights” (step 8), but leaves the option to allow for the creation of derivative works unchecked (step 9).
Then she decides upon the “some rights” for commercial usage (step 10) and selects a broad range of usage rights in order to address the largest possible audience. In step 11, all boxes but one are checked by Alice, which allows commercial institutions to reproduce the photo, to make it available for streaming and downloading, lending and leasing – even to print the photo in an offline medium. The only restriction that Alice wants to make: The photo shall not be modified. Thus, she leaves the respective box unchecked.
In the next step, Alice can decide on the auditory. Alice wants to permit a broad exploitation by the commercial licensees, so she checks both boxes in step 12, which allows commercial exploiters to use the photo for a specific user group (i.e. the users of a digital library or recipients of a newsletter) as well as to publish the photo to a general public.

As a result, Alice will be presented a summary of her choices in an overview. She will see a standard license key plus a short summary of the selected rights modules.

Preview of the following steps

(to be developed as part of the ‘transactions models’ in the next milestones of the Content Blockchain Project):

Alice will also be able to review the text of her license with a detailed description of her chosen license modules and options. This long version is the “legal layer” of her license and constitutes the valid basis for the actual license agreement.

After the generation of her rights profile, Alice will be able to select standard prices for the various licenses modules in a next step – and associate her public wallet key with the ISCC and license key. In this step, the commercial terms and conditions are set.

The (imaginary) “OnSight”-app, where Alice is a registered user, offers a convenient function to save her selected rights profile as her ‘standard rights profile’ for photos.

As soon as an ISCC is created, the rights profiles are set and the license terms are chosen, the ‘smart license’ will be registered in the blockchain.

Now Bob, a journalist, who browses the (imaginary) “OnSight” repository to find a photo for his next article, can find Alice’s photo.

Associated with the content (ISCC), he will easily find the license key and, thus, be informed about the corresponding license terms and conditions. If he agrees with those terms, he can license the photo with a simple click on a button and complete the transaction under the mentioned terms within the third-party-application.

Alice will receive a payment to her wallet via the blockchain.

2. License Profile for a B2B Smart-License

A news agency from Europe wants to license content to news outlets in the US and in the UK. A journalist from their staff has created a news article. As the agency owns the exclusive rights to the content produced by their staff, they are considered as the current rights owner and therefore as authorized to register a smart license on the blockchain.

The agency has created their own third-party app based on the open source resources published on GitHub by the Content Blockchain Project.

Creating Rights Profiles

First, the agency creates an ISCC for their content item. After this initial step, they use their own rights generator in order to create a rights profile for the content:

In this case, the agency is the publisher/exploiter (step 2).
The agency chooses a temporally unrestricted license (step 4) as it sees a growing demand and an increasing value of archived posts in media archives.
As this specific article is aimed at an audience in the UK and US, the agency wants to offer the content to media outlets in those countries for commercial use (step 6).
They choose to offer “some rights” only (step 7).
As the license is supposed to be used in B2B transactions, the agency skips all private usage rights (step 8).
As the agency only wants to grant a specific use to potential licensees, “some rights” are chosen in order to limit the scope for the commercial and institutional rights exploitation (step 10).
The article may be translated, so the box for “derive” is checked. Furthermore, licensees may reproduce and distribute physical copies of the content and make it available for streaming and publishing the content online (step 11).
The agency chooses not to limit the auditory, so both boxes in step 12 are checked, which allows commercial exploiters to use the article for a specific user group (i.e. their digital and print subscribers) as well as to publish the translation of the article online. (step 13)

As a result, the agency will be presented a summary of their choice in an overview. She will see a standard license key and a short summary of the selected rights modules.

Preview of the following steps

(to be developed as part of the ‘transactions models’ in the next milestones of the project):

The agency will be able to view the full legal text of their license, including a detailed description of the chosen license modules and the more granular options within these modules. This long version is the legally valid layer of the license and constitutes the basis for the actual license agreement.

After the generation of the rights profile, the agency will be able to select standard prices for the various licenses modules in a next step – and associate its public wallet key with the ISCC and license key. In this step, the commercial terms and conditions are set.

As soon as an ISCC is created, the rights profiles are set and the license terms are chosen, the ‘smart license’ will be registered in the blockchain.

Any media outlet can now easily check the terms and availability of this or any other registered news article for licensing and translating. Associated with the content identifier (ISCC), they will find the license key and, thus, be informed about the corresponding license terms and conditions and – if they agree – can license the article with a click on a button and complete the transaction under the mentioned terms.

The licensor will receive a payment to his or her wallet via the blockchain.