The online distribution of content presents significant opportunities and challenges to copyright owners, users and intermediaries such as search engines. It also raises crucial questions in areas such as ownership, licensing and management of IP as well as regarding the tools used to manage creative content and identify users and owners.

The 1996 WIPO «Internet» Treaties (WCT and WPPT) define ’rights management information’ (RMI) as ’information which identifies the work, the author of the work, the owner of any right in the work, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work, and any numbers or codes that represent such information, when any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a work or appears in connection with the communication of a work to the public.’

RMI is increasingly relevant and important. The technological tools used to manage rights information have been improving in recent years through growing sophistication in metadata schemes and development of standards.

RMI is increasingly used by copyright industries in the network environment, enabling users to customise their searches and engage in effective and flexible licensing agreements with right owners. Moreover, the rise of User Generated Content (UGC), the rise of new online licensing tools such as Creative Commons, and the growing popularity of blogging and social networking, offer new horizons for use of RMI in increasing copyright compliance while providing users greater functionality and flexibility to access and use content.

The WIPO Seminar on Rights Management Information will illustrate the relevance of RMI, survey existing technologies and standards, and identify future challenges.