Objects: Rights Information

Table of Contents

Introduction

The rights information about both the physical objects and their digital representations is important to capture. For general, textual statements about rights information the model uses the LinguisticObject pattern that should now be familiar. For more specific rights that can be identified individually, such as copyright, and optionally who holds those rights, there is the ability to assert them in a machine readable way.

Credit / Attribution Statement

It is important to be able to give a credit or attribution statement that should be displayed along with the object. For example, a painting that has been donated might have the requirement to state who the donor was. This is modeled using the statement pattern as a LinguisticObject, that is classified_as aat:300026687 - the term for "acknowledgements". The text is given in the content property.

Example:

The Night Watch is on loan to the Rijksmuseum from the City of Amsterdam.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/v1/linked-art.json",
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/nightwatch/15",
  "type": "HumanMadeObject",
  "_label": "Night Watch by Rembrandt",
  "referred_to_by": [
    {
      "type": "LinguisticObject",
      "classified_as": [
        {
          "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300026687",
          "type": "Type",
          "_label": "Credit Statement",
          "classified_as": [
            {
              "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300418049",
              "type": "Type",
              "_label": "Brief Text"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "content": "On loan from the City of Amsterdam"
    }
  ]
}

graph TD classDef object stroke:black,fill:#E1BA9C,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef actor stroke:black,fill:#FFBDCA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef type stroke:red,fill:#FAB565,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef name stroke:orange,fill:#FEF3BA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef dims stroke:black,fill:#c6c6c6,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef infoobj stroke:#907010,fill:#fffa40,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef timespan stroke:blue,fill:#ddfffe,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef place stroke:#3a7a3a,fill:#aff090,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef event stroke:#1010FF,fill:#96e0f6,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef literal stroke:black,fill:#f0f0e0; classDef classstyle stroke:black,fill:white; O1(object/nightwatch/15) class O1 object; O1-- type -->O1_0[HumanMadeObject] class O1_0 classstyle; O1-- _label -->O1_4("''Night Watch by Rembrandt''") class O1_4 literal; O2( _ ) class O2 infoobj; O2-- type -->O2_0[LinguisticObject] class O2_0 classstyle; O3(aat:300026687) class O3 type; O3-- type -->O3_0[Type] class O3_0 classstyle; O3-- _label -->O3_3("''Credit Statement''") class O3_3 literal; O4(aat:300418049) class O4 type; O4-- type -->O4_0[Type] class O4_0 classstyle; O4-- _label -->O4_3("''Brief Text''") class O4_3 literal; O3-- classified_as -->O4 O2-- classified_as -->O3 O2-- content -->O2_3("''On loan from the City of Amsterdam''") class O2_3 literal; O1-- referred_to_by -->O2
Other Representations: JSON-LD (raw) | JSON-LD (playground) | Turtle (raw) | Turtle (styled)

Rights Statement

For general statements about rights or licenses, the information can be provided in the same way as for a credit or attribution. The difference is that it is classified_as aat:300435434 - the term for license or legal statements. Such rights statements might be associated with the physical object or with the visual work, but likely should be associated with the work (the image that has or had copyright, rather than the bits of matter that carry it).

Example:

The visual content of the Night Watch is in the Public Domain.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/v1/linked-art.json",
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/visual/nightwatch/1",
  "type": "VisualItem",
  "_label": "Visual Content of Night Watch",
  "referred_to_by": [
    {
      "type": "LinguisticObject",
      "classified_as": [
        {
          "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435434",
          "type": "Type",
          "_label": "Copyright/License Statement",
          "classified_as": [
            {
              "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300418049",
              "type": "Type",
              "_label": "Brief Text"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "content": "Public Domain"
    }
  ]
}

graph TD classDef object stroke:black,fill:#E1BA9C,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef actor stroke:black,fill:#FFBDCA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef type stroke:red,fill:#FAB565,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef name stroke:orange,fill:#FEF3BA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef dims stroke:black,fill:#c6c6c6,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef infoobj stroke:#907010,fill:#fffa40,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef timespan stroke:blue,fill:#ddfffe,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef place stroke:#3a7a3a,fill:#aff090,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef event stroke:#1010FF,fill:#96e0f6,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef literal stroke:black,fill:#f0f0e0; classDef classstyle stroke:black,fill:white; O1(visual/nightwatch/1) class O1 infoobj; O1-- type -->O1_0[VisualItem] class O1_0 classstyle; O1-- _label -->O1_4("''Visual Content of Night Watch''") class O1_4 literal; O2( _ ) class O2 infoobj; O2-- type -->O2_0[LinguisticObject] class O2_0 classstyle; O3(aat:300435434) class O3 type; O3-- type -->O3_0[Type] class O3_0 classstyle; O3-- _label -->O3_3("''Copyright/License Statement''") class O3_3 literal; O4(aat:300418049) class O4 type; O4-- type -->O4_0[Type] class O4_0 classstyle; O4-- _label -->O4_3("''Brief Text''") class O4_3 literal; O3-- classified_as -->O4 O2-- classified_as -->O3 O2-- content -->O2_3("''Public Domain''") class O2_3 literal; O1-- referred_to_by -->O2
Other Representations: JSON-LD (raw) | JSON-LD (playground) | Turtle (raw) | Turtle (styled)

Rights Assertions

More detailed information is, however, often available and it is useful to be explicit. These patterns associate a Right that the object is subject_to, and then give more detail about the nature of that right, such as what sort of right, and who holds it.

Each Right is a tied specifically to the entity that is subject to the right, rather than being the broader class of such a right, and thus the Right is the status of the object, not the legal construct. We still need a way to have a reference to the type of right or license being asserted, and for this we use the classified_as property. The URI for the classification can be anything, but is most commonly a rightsstatements.org URI or a Creative Commons URI.

There is a recent effort to standardize rights statements, described at rightsstatements.org. Twelve basic rights statements were identified and given URIs to identify them. If any of these statements apply, it is useful to use these URIs to ensure that client systems can process them the in the same way.

These rights must be associated with the Work, rather than the Object, if they are about the copyright or other use of the image rather than the physical object. Asserting that you can reuse "The Night Watch" does not give you any physical rights over the object in the Rijksmuseum, it gives you usage rights over the visual content.

Example:

The visual content of the Night Watch is in the Public Domain.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/v1/linked-art.json",
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/visual/nightwatch/2",
  "type": "VisualItem",
  "_label": "Visual Content of Night Watch",
  "subject_to": [
    {
      "type": "Right",
      "_label": "Night Watch's Public Domain status",
      "classified_as": [
        {
          "id": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
          "type": "Type",
          "_label": "Public Domain"
        }
      ],
      "identified_by": [
        {
          "type": "Name",
          "content": "Public Domain"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

graph TD classDef object stroke:black,fill:#E1BA9C,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef actor stroke:black,fill:#FFBDCA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef type stroke:red,fill:#FAB565,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef name stroke:orange,fill:#FEF3BA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef dims stroke:black,fill:#c6c6c6,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef infoobj stroke:#907010,fill:#fffa40,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef timespan stroke:blue,fill:#ddfffe,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef place stroke:#3a7a3a,fill:#aff090,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef event stroke:#1010FF,fill:#96e0f6,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef literal stroke:black,fill:#f0f0e0; classDef classstyle stroke:black,fill:white; O1(visual/nightwatch/2) class O1 infoobj; O1-- type -->O1_0[VisualItem] class O1_0 classstyle; O1-- _label -->O1_4("''Visual Content of Night Watch''") class O1_4 literal; O2( _ ) class O2 infoobj; O2-- type -->O2_0[Right] class O2_0 classstyle; O2-- _label -->O2_2("''Night Watch's Public Domain status''") class O2_2 literal; O3(https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) class O3 type; O3-- type -->O3_0[Type] class O3_0 classstyle; O3-- _label -->O3_3("''Public Domain''") class O3_3 literal; O2-- classified_as -->O3 O4( _ ) class O4 name; O4-- type -->O4_0[Name] class O4_0 classstyle; O4-- content -->O4_2("''Public Domain''") class O4_2 literal; O2-- identified_by -->O4 O1-- subject_to -->O2
Other Representations: JSON-LD (raw) | JSON-LD (playground) | Turtle (raw) | Turtle (styled)