Copyright © 2016 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio, Beihang). W3C liability, trademark and document use rules apply.
The ODRL permissions and obligations expression language provides a flexible and interoperable information model, vocabulary, and encoding mechanisms for describing statements about digital content usage. The ODRL Information Model describes the underlying concepts, entities, and relationships that form the foundational basis for the semantics of the ODRL statements .
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This is a work in progress. No section should be considered final, and the absence of any content does not imply that such content is out of scope, or may not appear in the future. If you feel something should be covered, please tell us.
This document was published by the Permissions & Obligations Expression Working Group as a First Public Working Draft. This document is intended to become a W3C Recommendation. If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to public-poe-comments@w3.org (subscribe, archives). All comments are welcome.
Publication as a First Public Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
This document is governed by the 1 September 2015 W3C Process Document.
This section is non-normative.
The ODRL Information Model defines the underlying semantic model for permissions and obligations statements describing digital content usage. The information model covers the core concepts, entities and relationships that provide the foundational model for content usage statements.
The ODRL Information Model is formally specified using UML notation [uml].
This section is non-normative.
The basis for the deliverables for the Permissions & Obligations Expression Working Group are the reports created by the W3C ODRL Community Group. The ODRL Community Group has developed a family of specifications to support innovative expression of digital asset usage for the publication, distribution and consumption of content services. The final outputs of the ODRL Community Group were the ODRL Version 2.1 specifications that were a major update for ODRL and superseded the original ODRL Version 1.1 [odrl] (published as a W3C NOTE)
The following documents are part of the ODRL Community Group report series:
The ODRL Information Model was derived from the ODRL V2.1 Core Model Community Group report. Details of the differences between the W3C Working Group deliverables and the ODRL Community Group Reports are maintained in the Appendix. All new ODRL implementations are expected to use the deliverables of the Permissions & Obligations Expression Working Group.
As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
The key words MAY, MUST, OPTIONAL, and REQUIRED are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
The basic context of an ODRL Policy is that only an explicitly permitted use may be executed. Any use not explicitly permitted is prohibited by default. Based on that context, an ODRL Policy must contain at least one Permission and may contain Prohibitions. An ODRL Policy only permits the action explicitly specified in a Permission and all other actions are implicitly prohibited. An action defined in a Prohibition should only refine (or directly relate to) the semantics of an action defined in one of the Permissions in the ODRL Policy.
The above says that "an ODRL Policy MUST contain at least one Permission" but the UML model shows 0..*
For example, an ODRL Policy that has the action “present” Permission and may also have the action “print” Prohibition (as these actions are related hierarchically in the ODRL Vocabulary).
Note that ODRL Profiles can be developed and used to refine the basic context of an ODRL Policy. Hence, the application of an ODRL Profile must be understood by the consuming community and systems.
The figure below shows the ODRL Information Model. The Policy
is the central entity that holds an ODRL policy together.
A Permission
allows a particular Action
to be executed on a related Asset
, e.g. “play the audio file abc.mp3”. A Constraint
like “at most 10 times” might be added to specify the Permission
more precisely. The Party
that grants this Permission
is linked to it with the Role
assigner
, the Party
that is granted the Permission
is linked to it with the Role
assignee
, e.g. “assigner
VirtualMusicShop grants the Permission
to assignee
Alice”. Additionally, a Permission
MAY be linked to Duty
entities.
Similar to Permission
s, a Duty
states that a certain Action
MAY be executed by the Party
with the Role
assignee
for the Permission
to be valid, e.g. “Alice must pay 5 EUR in order to get the Permission
to play abc.mp3″.
Need to clarify that Duties MUST be performed but at what point in time is not specified (by default).
The Prohibition
entity is used in the same way as Permission
, with the two differences that it does not refer to Duties
and (obviously) that it forbids the Action
, e.g. “Alice is forbidden to use abc.mp3 commercially”.
Need to clarify that Prohibitions cannot have Duties.
The following sections describes each entity of the Information Model in greater detail.
The Policy
entity is the top-level entity and contains the following attributes:
uid
: the unique identification of the Policy
entity (REQUIRED)type
: indicates the semantics of the Policy
entity (REQUIRED). These are further described in the Vocabulary and ODRL Profiles.conflict
: indicates the precedence between Permission
s and Prohibition
s (OPTIONAL)undefined
: indicates how to handle undefined Action
s (OPTIONAL)inheritAllowed
: indicates if the Policy
entity can be inherited (OPTIONAL)inheritFrom
: the identifier from which this Policy
inherits from it’s parent Policy
(OPTIONAL)inheritRelation
: the identifier for the relationship type of this inheritance structure (OPTIONAL)profile
: the identifier of the ODRL Profile that this Policy
conforms to (OPTIONAL)The uid
attribute MUST be a unique identifier.
The range of values for the Policy
entity’s type
attribute will be described in the ODRL Vocabulary document or in community profiles. This value MAY also impose further constraints on the Information Model, such as are exemplified in the Scenarios for types Offer
and Agreement
. It is important that the type
attribute be clearly understood in policy expressions as the semantics MAY impose restrictions on the expression language constructs such as cardinalities between entities.
Conflict is not only used for resolving merge issues but also between perms/prohibits in the same policy.
The conflict
attribute is used to resolve conflicts arising from the merging of policies, specifically when there are conflicting Action
s in the Permission
s and Prohibition
s. If present, the conflict
attribute MUST take one of the following values:
perm
: the Permission
s will always takes precedenceprohibit
: the Prohibition
s will always takes precedenceinvalid
: the policy is not validIf the conflict
attribute is not explicitly set, its default value will be used instead. The default value of the conflict
attribute is invalid
.
Need to clarify conflicting values of the conflict attribute. That is, one policy says perm
and the other prohibit
.
The undefined
attribute is used to indicate how to support Action
s that are not part of any profile in the policy expression system. If present, the undefined
attribute MUST take one of
the following values:
support
: the Action
is to be supported as part of the policy – and the policy remains validignore
: the Action
is to be ignored and not part of the policy – and the policy remains validinvalid
: the Action
is unknown – and the policy is invalidIn the support
case, even though the Action
is unknown, the policy still is valid and the consuming parties or system of the policy MUST be made aware of the unknown Action
. This MAY be via a user interface that displays the unknown Action
for human readability.
In the ignore
case, even though the Action
is unknown, the policy still is valid and the consuming parties or system of the policy MAY be made aware of the unknown Action
.
In the invalid
case with the unknown Action
, the policy is invalid and the consuming parties or system of the policy MUST be made aware of this.
If the undefined
attribute is not explicitly set, its default value will be used instead. The default value of the undefined
attribute is invalid
.
Other attributes MAY be added to the Policy
entity to support additional functions and requirements. Typically, these will be from different community vocabularies. For example, to indicate the issued date or valid dates of the Policy
entity, use of the Dublin Core Metadata Terms would be recommended.
We need to make clear exactly what gets inherited and what gets overriden (if anything)
The inheritAllowed
attribute in the Policy
entity is used to indicate if the Policy
expression can be used in any inheritance relationship. If present, the value of the inheritAllowed
attribute MUST take one of the following values:
true
: the Policy
expression can be used for inheritancefalse
: the Policy
expression can not be used for inheritanceIf the inheritAllowed
attribute is not explicitly set, its default value will be used instead. The default value of the inherit
attribute is true
.
Only if the inheritAllowed
attribute has the value true
can the inheritFrom
and inheritRelation
attributes be specified.
The inheritFrom
attribute in the (child) Policy
will uniquely identify (via a UID) the (parent) Policy
from which the inheritance will be performed.
The inheritRelation
attribute in the (child) Policy
will uniquely identify (via a UID) the type of inheritance from the (parent) Policy
. For example, this may indicate the business scenario, such as subscription, or prior arrangements between the parties (that are not machine representable). Such terms MAY be defined in the ODRL Vocabulary or Community Profiles. For example, an Assigner and Assignee may have a historical arrangement related to the specific use of content they make available to each other. The business model (identified with a URI) is used in the inheritRelation
attribute in their subsequent ODRL policies they exchange. This will require the ODRL policy to be interpreted with the additional information identified by the URI. For example, this may include additional permission actions or constraints (etc) that is documented in their business model arrangement.
Both the inheritFrom
and inheritRelation
attribute MAY be used independently.
The following restrictions apply when using inheritance:
Policy
to one or more Child Policy
entities. No Child Policy
can inherit from two or more Parent Policy
entities.)Policy
entities.)Policy
MUST override the Parent Policy
. i.e.: If the same Action
appears in the Parent, then it is replaced by the Child version, otherwise the Parent Action
s are added to the Child’s Action
s.Policy
to the Child Policy
The profile
attribute in the Policy
entity is used to indicate the identifier (URI) of the ODRL Profile for which the policy expression conforms to. This attribute is OPTIONAL, but if the attribute appears, then any consuming system MUST understand the identified ODRL Profile – and all the rules from the Profile MUST apply to the policy expression. If multiple ODRL Profiles are required, then it is recommended that a new identifier be created to identify the combination of Profiles (and document the combined Profiles).
Since the ODRL Vocabulary represents broad needs for policy expressibility, different communities will require less or more concepts from the Information Model and terms from the ODRL Vocabulary. Community profiles of the ODRL model are expected to be developed that adequately document these requirements in respect to the Information Model and Vocabulary. Some requirements for communities developing ODRL Profiles include:
It is recommended that the ODRL Profile URI be the same as the Namespace URI, but this is not mandatory.
The Asset
entity is the subject of an ODRL policy expression that permissions and prohibitions are applied to. The Asset entity can be any form of identifiable resource, such as data/information, content/media, applications, or services. Furthermore, it can be used to represent other Asset
entities that are needed to undertake the Policy expression, such as with the Duty
entity. The Asset
entity is referred to by the Permission
and/or Prohibition
entities, and also by the Duty
entity.
The Asset
entity contains the following attribute:
uid
: the unique identification of the Asset
(REQUIRED)The identification of the Asset
entity is a key foundation of the ODRL Policy language. However, there are some use cases where the ODRL Policy expression MAY be embedded inside the target Asset
. In these cases, it MAY be more appropriate to provide, or infer, a link to the Asset
entity (as the complete Asset
uid
may not be known at the time) through the local context. Use of such inference and context MUST be documented in the relevant ODRL community Profile.
Since ODRL policies could deal with any kind of asset, the ODRL Information Model does not provide additional metadata to describe Asset
entities of particular media types. It is recommended to use already existing metadata standards, such as Dublin Core Metadata Terms that are appropriate to the Asset
type or purpose.
The Relation
entity is used to associate the Asset
entity with the relevant Permission
, Prohibition
, and Duty
entities
The Relation
entity is an association class and can be used to link to an Asset
from either Permission
, Duty
or Prohibition
, indicating how the Asset
MAY be utilised in respect to the entity that links to it.
The Relation
entity contains the following attribute:
relation
: indicates the relationship of the Asset
to the linked entity (REQUIRED)The default value for the relation
attribute is target
which indicates that the Asset
is the primary object to which the Permission
, Duty
or Prohibition
actions apply.
Target is formally defined in the ODRL Vocabulary
Other values for the Relation
entity MAY be defined in the ODRL Vocabulary and community Profiles.
Need to define Party more generically, not based on role
The Party
entity is the object of an ODRL policy that performs (or not performs) actions or has a role in a Duty. The Party
entity can be any form of identifiable entity, such as a person, group of people, organization, or agent. An agent is a person or thing that takes an active role or produces a specified effect.
The Party
entity contains the following attribute:
uid
: the unique identification of the party (REQUIRED)scope
: defines how the role shall be interpreted under different contexts. (OPTIONAL)The ODRL Information Model does not provide additional metadata for the Party
element. It is recommended to use already existing metadata standards, such as vCard [RFC6350], that are appropriate to the Party
type or purpose.
The Role
entity is used to associate the Party
entity with the relevant Permission
, Prohibition
, and Duty
entities.
The Role
entity is an association class and can be used to link to a Party
from either Permission
, Duty
or Prohibition
, indicating which role the Party
takes with respect to the entity that links to it.
The Role
entity contains the following attributes:
function
: the functional role the Party
takes (REQUIRED)The function
attribute MUST support the following values:
assigner
: indicates that the Party
has assigned the associated Permission
, Duty
, or Prohibition
. In other words, the Party
grants a Permission
or requires a Duty
to be performed or states a Prohibition
.assignee
: indicates that the Party
has been assigned the associated entity, i.e. they are granted a Permission
or required to perform a Duty
or have to adhere to a Prohibition
.Assignee and Asignee are formally defined in the ODRL Vocabulary
Other values for the function
attribute MAY be defined in the ODRL Vocabulary and community Profiles.
The scope
attribute MAY be used to indicate the context under which to interpret the Party
entity. If present, the scope
attribute MAY take one of the following values:
individual
: indicates that the Party
entity is a single individual. The linked Permission
, Duty
or Prohibition
is applicable for that individual only.group
: indicates that the Party
entity represents a group. The group consisting of many individual members. The linked Permission
, Duty
or Prohibition
is applicable for each member of that group. For example, a (constrained) Permission
to play a movie 5 times is valid for each Party
member or the Duty
to pay 3 EUR has to be fulfilled by each Party
member.Other values for the scope
attribute MAY be defined in the ODRL Vocabulary and community Profiles.
The Permission
entity indicates the Action
s that the assignee
is permitted to perform on the associated Asset
. In other words, what the assigner
(supplier) has granted to the assignee
(consumer).
An ODRL policy expression MAY contain at least one Permission
. It is important to verify the semantics of the Policy
type
attribute as this MAY indicate additional constraints on the Policy expression structure.
If several Permission
entities are referred to by a Policy
, then all of them are valid.
The Permission
entity has the following relations:
Asset
: the Permission
entity MUST refer to an Asset
(where at least one, and only one, relation
value is target
) on which the linked Action
MAY be performed (REQUIRED)Action
: the Permission
entity MUST refer to exactly one Action
that indicates the granted operation on the target Asset
(REQUIRED)Party
: the Permission
MUST refer to one or more Party
entities linked via the Role
entity (see Section 2.3.1) (OPTIONAL)Constraint
: the Permission
MAY refer to one or more Constraint
s which affect the validity of the Permission
, e.g. if the Action
play
is only permitted for a certain period of time (OPTIONAL)Duty
: the Permission
MAY refer to one or more Duty
entities that indicate a requirement that MAY be fulfilled in return for receiving the Permission
(OPTIONAL)The Duty
entity indicates a requirement that MUST be fulfilled in return for being entitled to the referring Permission
entity. While implying different semantics, the Duty
entity is similar to Permission
in that it is an Action that can be undertaken. If a Permission
refers to several Duty
entities, all of them have to be fulfilled for the Permission
to become valid. If several Permission
entities refer to one Duty
, then the Duty only has to be fulfilled once for all the Permission
entities to become valid.
The Duty
entity contains the following attributes:
uid
: a unique identification for this Duty
. Used to refer a single Duty
to multiple Permission
entities (OPTIONAL)The Duty
entity has the following relations:
Action
: indicates the operation that MUST be performed (REQUIRED). Note: It is assumed that the assigned Party has the appropriate permissions to perform this action.Party
: a Duty
MAY refer to Party
entities with different Role
s (see Section 2.3.1). If no explicit Party
is linked to as assignee
or assigner
, the Parties
with the respective Role
s are taken from the referring Permission
. (OPTIONAL)Asset
: a Duty
entity MAY refer to an Asset
(where at least one, and only one, relation
value is target
) related to fulfilling the Duty
.nextPolicy
Action
must be linked to the identifier of a target policy Asset
. (OPTIONAL)Constraint
: a Duty
MAY link to one or more Constraint
s (OPTIONAL)A Duty
entity does not, by itself, specify any conditions on when the Duty
Action
MUST or MAY be performed, such as to compensate
before viewing the movie. Such conditions MAY be expressed through Constraint
entities.
Need to clarify that Duties must be performed but when is not specified by default.
To support cases where the Duty
MAY be performed for each Action
on an Asset
(for example, pay-per-view) then the use of a Constraint
(e.g. count=1) on the Permission
(e.g. play) can express these semantics.
The Prohibition
entity indicates the Action
s that the assignee
is prohibited to perform on the related Asset
. Prohibition
s are issued by the supplier of the Asset
– the Party
with the Role
assigner
. If several Prohibition
entities are referred to by a Policy
, all of them must be satisfied.
The Prohibition
entity has the following relations:
Asset
: the Prohibition
entity MUST refer to an Asset
(where at least one, and only one, relation
value is target
) on which the Action
is prohibited (REQUIRED)Action
: the Prohibition
entity MUST refer to exactly one Action
that is prohibited (REQUIRED)Party
: the Prohibition
MAY refer to one or more Party
entities linked via the Role
entity (see Section 2.3.1) (OPTIONAL)Constraint
: the Prohibition
MAY refer to one or more Constraint
entities (OPTIONAL)The Action
entity (when related to a Permission
entity) indicates the operations (e.g. play
, copy
, etc.) that the assignee
(i.e. the consumer) is permitted to perform on the related Asset
linked to by Permission
. When related to a Prohibition
, the Action
entity indicates the operations that the assignee
(again the consumer) is prohibited to perform on the Asset
linked to by Prohibition
. Analogously, when related to a Duty
, it indicates the operation to be performed.
Action
contains the following attribute:
name
: indicates the Action
entity term (REQUIRED)As its value, the name
attribute MAY take one of a set of Action
names which are formally defined in profiles. The ODRL Vocabulary defines a standard set of potential terms that MAY be used. Communities will develop new (or extend existing) profiles to capture additional and refined semantics.
The Constraint
entity indicates limits and restrictions to the Permission
, the Prohibition
and the Duty
entity. Constraint
s express mathematical terms with two operands and one operator. For example, the “number of usages” (name
) must be “smaller than” (operator
) the “number 10” (rightOperand
).
If multiple Constraint
entities are linked to the same Permission
, Prohibition
, or Duty
entity, then all of the Constraint
entities MUST be satisfied. That is, all the Constraint
entities are (boolean) anded. In the case where the same Constraint
is repeated, then these MUST be represented as a single Constraint
entity using an appropriate operator
value (for example, isAnyOf
).
The Constraint
entity contains the following attributes:
name
: a name that identifies the the left operand of the operation (REQUIRED)operator
: an operator function (REQUIRED)rightOperand
: the right operand of the operation (REQUIRED)dataType
: the datatype of the rightOperand (OPTIONAL)unit
: the units of the rightOperand (OPTIONAL)status
: the current value of the left operand (OPTIONAL)The name
identifies the left operand of the mathematical operation for the Constraint
such as “Number of Usages” and “Expiration Date” etc. The operator
identifies the comparative operation such as “greater than” or “equal to”. The rightOperand
identifies the value that is being compared. The dataType
indicates the type of the rightOperand
, such as “decimal” or “datetime” and the unit
indicates the unit value of the rightOperand
, such as “EU dollars”.
When processing policy expressions, these Constraint
names MAY be directly linked to a procedure that can determine the outcome of the operations, such as the number of already performed usages and the current date. The name
and operator
are defined in the ODRL Vocabulary or community profiles.
The status
provides the current value of the Constraint
variable (i.e. current value of name
). This is useful in cases where the current status of Constraint
s needs to be captured and expressed in the ODRL Information Model.
This section is non-normative.
This section shows a number of policy expression scenarios. In these examples, the different policy expression type
s that are used are for illustrative purposes only and are not part of this normative specification. Also, the specific Action
and Constraint
names (etc.) used in these examples are for illustrative purposes only. Please note that formal policy expression type
s and other entities are defined in the ODRL Vocabulary specification, or in community profiles.
Need to clarify if these Scenarios need to be udated.
The following shows an instance of a set
Policy
. The Set
shows a policy expression, stating that the Asset
http//example.com/asset:9898
is the target
of the Permission
reproduce
and the Prohibition
to modify
. No parties or other elements are involved. This set
could be used, for example, as a template or an instant license.
The following shows the instance of an offer
Policy
. The offer
contains the music file http//example.com/music:4545
that is offered by the Party
http//example.com/sony:10
with the Permission
s to play
and copy
the file. The Permission
copy
is only granted once. The two Permission
s are offered for a payment of AUD$0.50.
The following shows the instance of an agreement
Policy
. The agreement
contains all entities shown in the offer
scenario above. A new Party
element http//example.com/billie:888
has been added. This Party
accepted the previous offer
and thus is now the buyer of the Permission
play
and copy
, i.e. is now linked as assignee
of the Permission
s and Duty
entities.
The following shows the instance of a request
Policy
. The Party
http//example.com/guest:0589
has requested the Permission
to display
the target
Asset
http//example.com/news:0099
.
The following shows the instance of a ticket
Policy
. The ticket
expresses the play
Permission
for the target
Asset
http//example.com/game:4589
. The Ticket
is valid until the end of the year 2010. Any valid holder of this ticket may exercise this Permission
.
The following shows the instance of an offer
Policy
showing the nextPolicy
structure. The party http//example.com/sony:99
assigns the Permission
distribute
directly to the potential buyer of the permission who will pay $EU1,000. The distribute
Permission
is also constrained to the country Italy. The potential assignee
may then distribute
the target
Asset
according to the nextPolicy
target
Asset
linked directly from this Duty
. In this case, the next Policy Asset
stipulates that the potential assignee
may only offer the display
Permission
to downstream consumers.
The following shows the instance of an privacy
Policy
.
The target
Asset
is Personal Data and the assignee
is allowed to distribute
the Asset
only for the purpose
of contacting the subject of the Personal Data. The purpose value is taken from the P3P privacy purpose vocabulary.
Additionally, the assigner
(the Party
who the personal data is about) has stipulated that the assignee
must delete
the Asset
after a 30 day period (retention policy).
The following shows the instance of an agreement
Policy
with both a Permission
and a Prohibition
. The party http//example.com/sony:10
assigns the Permission
play
to the Party
http//example.com/billie:888
at the same time they are prohibited from utilising the target
Asset
as a mobile:ringtone
. Additionally, in case of any conflict, the conflict
attribute is set to perm
indicating that the Permission
entity will take precedence.
The following shows the instance of a (child) Policy
http//example.com/policy:9999
inheriting from another (parent) Policy
http//example.com/policy:5531
. The inheritFrom
attribute of the (child) Policy
has the same identifier as the (parent) Policy
. In this inheritance example, the (parent) Policy
allows the Party
http//example.com/billie:888
to print
the (parent’s) target
Asset
. The (child) Policy
allows the Party
http//example.com/class:IT01
(a group of people) to display
the (child’s) target
Asset
. Since the (child) Policy
also inherits from the (parent) Policy
, then the Party
http//example.com/class:IT01
can also print
the (parent’s) target
Asset
.
Is this last statement true?
The following shows an instance of a set
Policy
utilising multiple Asset
entities.
The index
Permission
is granted to the target
Asset
. As well, the x:collection
Asset
specifies which database the index
outcome should be stored in.
This section is non-normative.
Should this section be included in a W3C REC?
This section contains advanced ODRL features. Although not part of the normative specification, they provide an opportunity for communities to experiment with and provide feedback on experiences that may be included in future ODRL versions.
Extended Relations
may tie Permission
, Prohibition
, Duty
, and Constraint
entities together with an AND
, OR
or XOR
relationship. Only entities of the same type can be linked with this model. For example, a Permission
and Prohibition
cannot be linked together within this model. The Extended Relations model supports the following attribute:
operation
: may be set with one of the mathematical values AND
, OR
and XOR
. (OR
is the default if not specified.)The following table outlines the semantics of Extended Relations with respect to each of the main entity types.
Permission |
Prohibition |
Duty |
Constraint |
|
OR |
The related party may perform any (at least) one of the Action s |
The related party MAY NOT perform at least one of the Action s |
The related party MUST perform at least one of the Action s |
The related Permission /Prohibition /Duty is restricted by at least one of the Constraint s |
AND |
The related party MUST perform all of the Action s |
The related party MAY NOT perform all of the Action s |
The related party MUST perform all of the Action s |
The related Permission /Prohibition /Duty is restricted by all of the Constraint s |
XOR |
The related party MAY perform only one of the Action s |
The related party MAY NOT perform only one of the Action s |
The related party MUST perform only one of the Action s |
The related Permission /Prohibition /Duty is restricted by only one of the Constraint s. |
Note that Extended Relations are not needed to assign two or more Permission
s to a Party
entity. In this case simply use as many Assignee
relations between Party
and Permission
as needed.
As the Information Model diagram shows the key Permission
, Prohibition
and Duty
entities are very similar since they have (more or less) the same relationships to the other entities. They core difference is in their semantics:
Permission
says that the assignee
may do something,Duty
says that the assignee
should do something, andProhibition
says that they should not do it.In an implementation that interprets ODRL, it may make sense to introduce a common superclass Rule
, as shown in the (abbreviated) Model below.
By implementing Permission
, Prohibition
and Duty
as subclasses of Rule
, the redundancy of having very similar, but separately developed classes in an application’s source code can be avoided. Furthermore, Rule
makes it possible to easily extend the Information Model in Profiles by adding policy expressions (as subclasses of Rule
) that are not possible by default.
Include Rule in the normative Information Model? Rule appears in the Ontology as an abstract class already
In the ODRL Information Model, Duties
are only directly related to Permission
s, meaning that for a Permission
to become effective, the related Duty
should be performed. For some use cases though, it might be useful to attach a Duty
to a Prohibition
, meaning that if a Prohibition
is violated, the Duty
has to be performed as a kind of remedy or consequence for the violation.
Not only can a Prohibition
have a Duty
attached to it as a remedy, even Duties
themselves may have remedies, e.g. “For the Permission
to play audio file xyz to become effective, you have to perform the Duty
‘pay 2€’. If you don’t perform this Duty
(even though you’ve played yxz), you have to remedy this by performing the Duty
‘pay 5€'”.
In order to distinguish between a Duty
that has to be fulfilled as a requirement and one that has to be fulfilled as a remedy, different relation names are introduced as shown in the Figure below.
The relation between Permission
and Duty
, which was unnamed before, is now named hasRequirement
. This is needed not only to make the different semantics clearer, but also because a Duty
can refer to yet another Duty
as a requirement, e.g. “If you want to print this written article, you have the Duty
to attach a particular image of the author, and if you do that, you have the Duty
to attribute the image to the photographer”.
This section is non-normative.
An ODRL policy can be of type "Privacy".
Need to add this section for the W3C Horizontal Review on Privacy Considerations.
Need to address the W3C PING Privacy Questions
The POE Working Group gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the ODRL Community Group and the earlier ODRL Initiative. The output of the ODRL Community Group was fundamental to the current model.
In particular the editors would like to thank:
for their past editorial contributions.
Significant technical changes in this specification from the ODRL Community Group's draft are:
5.10 Social Network
The following shows the instance of an
agreement
Policy
for a Social Network scenario.The
target
Asset
are photos posted to a Social Network site and theassigner
is the owner of the photos. Theassignee
is aParty
group
and represents the football network members on the social network, who are each allowed todisplay
the photos.