What Is Rights Expression Language (REL)?
When you hear "digital rights management", it's easy to think of things like copying a CD or downloading movies for free. What about when you're trying to play that CD in your car or download a movie on an airplane? If you've ever tried to do either, chances are good that you ran into trouble. Digital rights management is designed to prevent unauthorized access, use, and copying of digital media, but what happens when someone tries to access something they shouldn't be able to? The answer is that DRM can get complicated fast. That's where Rights Expression Language (REL) comes in. REL is a machine-readable language used in digital rights management that supports consistency and reliability among different systems and services. It guarantees end-to-end interoperability between various services so they can work together seamlessly. The primary function of REL is to define licenses, meaning permission and restrictions about document content usage. If you have a document you'd like to license, it's easy with REL. For example, you can set up a document in the public domain or under GNU Free Documentation License. The REL is a small but essential part of your digital media. It stands for "Rights Expression Language", which lets you know if the content you're looking at is protected and, if so, how to access it. RELs are usually embedded as metadata (data, such as creation date, language used and tools used to create media) in documents like MP3 audio, downloaded video or e-books. Examples of notable RELs include Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL), Creative Commons REL (CC REL), and Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG-21). A standard online REL is the General Free Documentation License (GDFL), which gives users free permission to copy and distribute a work often subject to copyleft - the opposite of copyright. In short: The REL tells you whether or not you can use something with impunity!
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