C: Rights

Definition: Information about rights held in and over the resource.

Obligation: Optional, not used for Agency.

What is this element?

The Rights element indicates the user's right to access, see, copy, redistribute, republish or otherwise make use of all or part of the resource. It could include copyright statements or details about access restrictions on the service or resource, i.e. if it is not freely available.

Although this element is optional, its use is highly recommended when information resources or services are being described if there are any restrictions. If a resource or service is freely available without any restrictions or conditions on usage, then this element should be left blank.

Although the NZGLS metadata describing the resource might be freely available, the actual resource or service may have some restrictions on it regarding access. If this is the case, then the Rights element should be used to describe access terms and conditions. Note that there is no way of enforcing the access policy through the metadata, and agencies will need some kind of external mechanism to do this.

If possible provide a link to more details about the Rights, for example, for a copyright statement provide the URI of the webpage which explains your agency's policy on re-use of copyright material. The typical copyright statement for central government agency documents would be: Crown Copyright New Zealand.

When describing rights to access a service, create free text describing who can access the service, under what terms, and why, or a provide a URI for a webpage which contains that information.

Rights and other elements

Rights should be used only for intellectual property rights or restrictions on access to a resource or service. Details on where and how to get at the resource or service should be recorded in the Availability element, not here. The Rights element deals with who can legitimately have access to a resource or service, Availability deals with how to obtain it.

Audience tells you who the content is designed for; Rights is the place to list the individuals or groups who are allowed to see the resource.

Qualifiers

Refinements

copyright - this is a statement and identifier indicating the legal ownership and rights regarding use and re-use of all or part of the resource. Do not use "copyright" for service or agency records.

Encoding Schemes

URI - Uniform Resource Identifier for online or electronic resources. This includes the other schemes "Uniform Resource Locator" (URL) and "Uniform Resource Names" (URN).

Enter a URI in full, i.e. you must include the part before the colon as it identifies the scheme being used, e.g. http://.

See: RFC2396: Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax, August 1998 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt

Examples