Press Release

OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to Advance XML Rights Language

ContentGuard, HP, Microsoft, Reuters, Verisign, and Others Collaborate on Standard to Express Usage and Access Rights Across Industries

Boston, MA, USA; 2 April 2002 — OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, today announced its members have formed the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee to advance a common XML rights language standard for the digital rights management (DRM) marketplace. Their work will provide a universal method for specifying and managing rights associated with all kinds of resources including digital content and web services. The OASIS specification will support a wide variety of business models, expressing both simple and complex rights and promoting interoperability between systems regardless of platform, media type or format. “There is a significant need across many industries for DRM standards to assist institutions in managing their digital assets such as content or web services”, said Hari Reddy of ContentGuard, chair of the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee. “Our work in establishing a standard rights language will address the need for interoperability between the components and systems that manage the creation, distribution and consumption of digital assets within and across different industries.” ContentGuard intends to submit its eXtensible rights Markup Language(tm) (XrML(tm)) to the 0ASIS Rights Language Technical Committee as a starting point for this work. XrML, recently selected as the base architecture for the MPEG-21 Rights Expression Language, can be used in content-centric as well as service-based business models. “The use of DRM technologies for the distribution of content and services holds great potential, and putting DRM-related standards in place is essential for the success of DRM, ” said Joshua Duhl, an IDC Contributing Analyst. “The contribution of XrML to OASIS is an important step in establishing a standard rights language for DRM.” Members of the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee include ContentGuard, Hewlett-Packard Company, Microsoft, Reuters, VeriSign Inc., and other OASIS members. Participation remains open to all organizations and individuals interested in advancing a common rights language. Information on joining OASIS can be found on http://www.oasis-open.org/join. “The OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee is an important step towards consistency in the area of rights expression — a key to establishing interoperability for DRM systems and services,” said John Erickson, systems program manager for digital rights management, HP Labs. “HP has been involved in a number of industry initiatives that are crucial to the evolution of DRM and is pleased to be a sponsoring member of this technical committee.” About OASIS OASIS (www.oasis-open.org), a not-for-profit, global consortium, drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. OASIS is the home for XML conformance, Web services, security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and other interoperability specifications development. OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100 countries around the world. OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor ebXML, a global framework for e-business data exchange. OASIS operates XML.org, a community clearinghouse for XML application schemas, vocabularies and related documents. OASIS hosts The XML Cover Pages, an online reference collection for interoperable markup language standards. For more information: Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209