Workshop on the Technology of Terms and Conditions

9614924 Klavans A major obstacle to the further development of digital libraries, and the national information infrastructure as a whole, is the lack of adequate means of providing digital objects on any basis other than free, unrestricted access. Publishers wish to specify terms of use and ensure those terms are enforced (optionally collecting payment), before providing valuable materials on the net. While the latter topics are the subject of much commercial activity, the former seems to have been largely neglected. This workshop will attempt to begin a process of defining a common machine-readable language for expressing the terms and conditions of use of electronic objects, and more generally assess alternative frameworks and means for the technologies of terms and conditions in a distributed network-based environment.