Extensible Rights Markup Language (XRML) is designed for implementing e-commerce support of digital intellectual property. XRML allows developers to do the following:
Describe the rights, cost and conditions associated with given content. Specify usage rights in clear, easy-to-understand form using standardized terminology. Leverage other standards to specify digital signatures, digital identifiers, content metadata and so on across multiple systems and applications. Digitally sign all XRML labels. XRML defines usage categories in terms of rights and transactions. Rights are associated with a digital product and described in machine-oriented language. Rights include copying, sealing, temporary use and partial use in a derived work. Transactions define what a repository can do when users present specific rights.
XRML was originally developed at Xerox Corp.'s Palo Alto Research Center out of an earlier project called Digital Property Rights (DRM) Language and spun off to a new DRM company, ContentGuard Inc. in Bethesda, Md. While not yet a full-fledged standard, XRML has already been adopted as the basis for the MPEG's proposed Rights Expression Language and the Open eBook Rights and Rules Working Group. XRML is also under consideration by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information and Standards.
For more information, see www.xmrl.org.