Managing the commercial usage rights of an asset, be it a photo, piece of music or a video can be a tricky business. Video content has its own particular issues when it comes to distribution rights management. In particular, each asset tends to have multiple rights attached making management a lot more complex.

Espresso Group, the leading digital curriculum provider in the UK, is working with us to automate the calculation of specific rights based on the data contained in an agreement. This is an interesting one to crack and here is a quick update on where VYRE are in the process. 

Espresso’s core ambition is to reduce the manual work involved in entering rights data and the possibility of human error.

“ We’re thrilled with the system VYRE have developed for us, and the simple solutions their UX team found to complex problems.”

The first stage of solving this problem is entering rights information for a given asset and linking it to one or more Agreement.  For instance, a single video could be linked to the following agreements:

• An overarching contract with a content provider 

• An agreement with a musician to use their music in the soundtrack

• An agreement with a picture library to use a still image 

• Parental consent forms allowing children to appear in the video

To enable the information to be captured in the most efficient way, we have built a new Rights section within the Management System that allows a Rights Administrator to create usage agreements and link them to specific assets. An asset can have multiple agreements linked to it as is required.

When viewing an asset, it’s possible to click on the ‘Rights’ tab and view summary information on the usage agreements that are linked to it, including the start and end dates. 

We are also in the process of building a Rights Calculator to automate the calculation of specific rights fields for assets based on the data contained in any linked Agreements. 

This is intended to reduce: 

a) the manual work involved in entering rights data

b) the possibility of human error.

Each agreement may have different values for territorial clearance, expiry date etc.  We’re in the process of creating a system to calculate the effective rights data for any asset based on the agreements it is linked to. At present this is done manually.

 For example, if the agreements all have different expiry dates, the effective expiry date for the video should be the soonest of the four expiry dates. We’ve implemented a series of checks and error logging to flag up any agreements that have been linked with missing data.

On viewing the asset in the CMS, it will calculate the expiry date and territorial clearance that is applicable based on the agreements that have been linked to it. 

The system is being piloted on with Espresso’s video store but if successful will be extend to other stores such as images.

When creating new content and sites the queries are adjusted to ensure that only valid content for that territory will be shown.

Harley Richardson, Director of Production and Development at Espresso Group told us, 

“ We’re thrilled with the system VYRE have developed for us, and the simple solutions their UX team found to complex problems.  The new system is flexible and extendable and most importantly, reflects the way we work.  It allows us to bring all our licensing data into one place and integrate it seamlessly into our production systems, which will be crucial as we develop new products and expand our business into new territories and markets.”

Notes

Espresso Group comprises of Espresso Education, an International Division and Education Clip Library (in partnership with ITN). Espresso Education is the UK market leader in the provision of video-based digital curriculum services to primary and secondary schools, featuring Espresso Primary, Clipbank, and Channel 4 Learning. Its international division licenses and distributes content into more than 40 countries worldwide.