Method and apparatus for verifying content reuse rights and resolving rights in the presence of multiple licenses

摘要

A small program in a browser that a knowledge worker uses to search for content can be activated when the worker wants to determine available rights for a publication that has been found. When activated, the program accesses a rights advisor website that converts the URL of the publication in the browser to standard publication identifiers. The publication identifiers are then used to access a rights database and extract all rights associated with the publication. Based on selected characteristics of the worker and the organization to which the worker belongs, the rights are filtered and placed into a decision tree. The tree is then traversed from its lowest level upward to locate the most favorable rights and the resulting rights are presented to the worker via the browser.