Rights¶
As discussed in the section on entity types, Rights records provide rights related restrictions that can be linked to accession records, archival descriptions and their related digital objects. AtoM Rights metadata elements use PREMIS rights elements. In AtoM restrictions can be based on Copyright(s), License, Statute(s) and Policy. You can also include rights restrictions based on guidelines set by the Donor of the records. Rights can be set to be inherited in AtoM, which means that rights added at a higher level (e.g., fonds level) can be inherited by the lower levels (e.g., item level). See Manage rights inheritance, below.
If you add rights to an accession record, all archival descriptions created from that accession will inherit the same rights.
AtoM also allows you to choose one PREMIS rights act (such as Display, Disseminate, etc) to use as an action for your digital objects. See Make rights actionable on digital objects, below.
Add a new rights record¶
This section describes how to add a new rights record by using the rights dialog provided through the add/edit template. You must add rights to an existing accession record or archival description. To create an accession record or archival description first, please see: Add new accession record or Add new archival description.
Note
You must be logged in and have the appropriate privileges, such as editors and administrators to be able to add/edit content in AtoM, which includes creating a rights record. See: Log in.
Add rights to an Accession record¶
- Navigate to the accession record you want to edit. You can do this via the main menu in the AtoM header bar, by clicking on Manage > Accessions. For more information on navigation in AtoM, see: Access content.
- AtoM will redirect you to the accession record browse page. Select the record you want by clicking on the hyperlink Identifier. You can also search for an accession record with the accession records search box located at the bottom of the browse page. For more information on searching for accession records in AtoM, see: Searching for accession records.
- When you have arrived at the record to which you wish to add rights, click on “Create new rights” in the button block. The PREMIS rights entry form will appear.
- The Rights entry page allows you to establish the basis for which rights are granted or disallowed as well as describing the rights themselves.
- Rights basis:
AtoM provides a drop-down menu to select the basis for the rights associated with the description. You can select: Copyright, License, Statute, Policy, or Donor.
The Rights entry page with Copyright set as the basis.
The fields below the rights basis will differ depending on the basis chosen. Compare for example the figure above, showing Copyright as the basis, and the figure below, showing Statute as the basis:
The Rights entry page with Statute set as the basis.
As you complete the Rights basis fields, tooltips will appear to explain the purpose of the field.
When adding the Rights holder, can add a new Rights holder name, or select an existing one using the auto-complete action provided by AtoM.
- Act/Granted rights:
Once you have established the basis for the rights you need to grant, fill in the Act/Granted rights fields:
- The “Act” data entry field is a drop-down list. You can select: Delete, Discover, Display, Disseminate, Migrate, Modify, and Replicate.
- The “Restriction” data entry field provides three choices: Allow, Disallow or Conditional.
- Add Start and End dates for the right. Leave the end date blank if it is unknown or open.
- You can add notes related to the granted right.
If you are finished adding granted rights related to this basis, click Save. If you have more granted rights to add related to this basis, click Add granted right and fill in the fields again. Click Save when you are finished.
Tip
You may have granted rights to record that are related to more than one basis. For example, you may want to record a granted right related to Copyright, and another granted right related to Policy. After you click Save, you can return to the accession and add more rights related to another basis by clicking More -> Create new rights again.
After rights are created for an accession, they can be edited or deleted by logged in users with the correct permissions by clicking the links from the archival description in view mode:
Important
When you click delete, AtoM deletes the rights record without asking for confirmation, so be sure to click only when you are positive you wish to delete the rights information!
- Once you complete adding information to the rights record, click on the click Save.
Add rights to an Archival description¶
- First, navigate to the archival description you wish to add rights to. You can do this by browsing or searching for the archival description - see Access content for more information on navigation in AtoM.
- In the button block, click on “More,” then on “Create new rights”.
- The Rights entry page allows you to establish the basis for which rights are granted or disallowed as well as describing the rights themselves.
- Rights basis:
AtoM provides a drop-down menu to select the basis for the rights associated with the description. You can select: Copyright, License, Statute, Policy, or Donor.
The Rights entry page with Copyright set as the basis.
The fields below the rights basis will differ depending on the basis chosen. Compare for example the figure above, showing Copyright as the basis, and the figure below, showing Statute as the basis:
The Rights entry page with Statute set as the basis.
As you complete the Rights basis fields, tooltips will appear to explain the purpose of the field.
When adding the Rights holder, can add a new Rights holder name, or select an existing one using the auto-complete action provided by AtoM.
- Act/Granted rights:
Once you have established the basis for the rights you need to grant, fill in the Act/Granted rights fields:
- The “Act” data entry field is a drop-down list. You can select: Delete, Discover, Display, Disseminate, Migrate, Modify, and Replicate.
- The “Restriction” data entry field provides three choices: Allow, Disallow or Conditional.
- Add Start and End dates for the right. Leave the end date blank if it is unknown or open.
- You can add notes related to the granted right.
If you are finished adding granted rights related to this basis, click Save. If you have more granted rights to add related to this basis, click Add granted right and fill in the fields again. Click Save when you are finished.
Tip
You may have granted rights to record that are related to more than one basis. For example, you may want to record a granted right related to Copyright, and another granted right related to Policy. After you click Save, you can return to the archival description and add more rights related to another basis by clicking More -> Create new rights again.
After rights are created for an archival description, they can be edited or deleted by logged in users with the correct permissions by clicking the links from the archival description in view mode:
Important
When you click delete, AtoM deletes the rights record without asking for confirmation, so be sure to click only when you are positive you wish to delete the rights information!
Manage rights inheritance¶
AtoM will allow you to add a rights record to a parent record and choose whether or not the same rights record should be applied to that parent’s child records.
After creating a rights record at a parent-level, in edit mode click on “More” then “Manage rights inheritance” in the button block of the parent record.
On the next screen, decide:
1. If you want the rights record(s) inherited by all descendants (children) or only descendants with digital objects associated with them (see Make rights actionalable on digital objects, below) and,
2. Whether you would like to delete any rights which pre-exist in the child records and replace with the parent rights (option 1) or combine the parent rights with any existing rights in the child records (option 2).
Click Apply. The child records will now reflect the rights inheritance from the parent record as you indicated.
Note
AtoM will only allow you to manage rights inheritance from the top down- you will not be able to modify the rights of a child record and have them passed up to the parent record.
Note
Rights inheritance is a task that AtoM performs asynchronously, via the Jobs Scheduler. If the parent description has many children, it may take some time for all of the children to inherit the rights. See Manage Jobs for more information.
Make rights actionable on digital objects¶
Administrators can choose an act/granted right for which digital object permissions are set. This means that digital object thumbnails, reference display copies and master digital objects can be made visible or invisible to non-authenticated users by changing the rights record in conjunction with the appropriate administrative settings.
To access the settings, click on the
Admin menu in the main menu and
select “Settings” from the drop-down menu. Then click on “Permissions.”
First, choose from the drop-down menu the act/granted right you would like to apply to digital objects. You can choose from: Delete, Discover, Display, Disseminate, Migrate, Modify and Replicate. For many institutions, either Display or Disseminate will be the logical choice since this functionality relates to the display of digital objects.
Next, use the drop-down menus to indicate whether viewing/downloading digital objects should be allowed or disallowed. You will set these permissions for each of the three possible restrictions (Allow, Conditional, and Disallow). For each restriction you will also indicate whether viewing and downloading masters, reference representations and thumbnails are allowed or disallowed.
You can only make rights actionable based on one act/granted right. Other acts and granted rights can be added to the archival description, but they will have no effect on the visibility of digital objects to your users.
Tip
Here is an example use case:
Suppose an institution has determined that their digital objects fall into 3 categories: those that are in the public domain, those that are definitely still under copyright, and those that have an unknown copyright status. The institution does a risk assessment and determines that:
- Public domain digital objects can be accessed by anyone in any format
- Items under copyright can only be viewed online in their thumbnail version
- Items with unknown or uncertain copyright status can be viewed online, but only in smaller resolution. It is determined to be too risky to allow online access to the master copies.
The institution has created rights records for their archival descriptions using the act “Display”.
This institution would set their Permissions as such:
Example rights records in the related archival descriptions could look like this:
Public domain items: Display - Allow
The digital object would display, and would also be “clickable” to access the master copy:
Copyrighted items: Display - Disallow
The digital object would not display, and is replaced by a statement explaining why it is not visible:
Uncertain copyright: Display - Conditional
The image will display in its reference representation, but will not be “clickable”, preventing the user from using the master image:
Disallowed and Conditional statements¶
To alter the statement displayed for either Disallowed or Conditional digital object views, administrators can do so on the Settings page under User Interface Labels.
Manage Rights holders records¶
- Users with editor and administrator access permissions can
navigate to the main menu located in the AtoM header bar and
click on the
Manage menu, then select
Rights holders from the drop-down list. AtoM will take you to a browse page
for Rights holders.
Tip
For general information on navigation in AtoM, see: Access content. For general information on browse menus in AtoM, see: Browse. See also our section on the Manage menu
An administrator can also customize the elements that appear in the Main menu via Admin > Menus. For more information, see: Manage Menus.
- When you have arrived at the Rights holders records browse page, AtoM provides a dedicated search box for searching existing rights holders in the system. For more information on using the Rights holders dedicated search box, see: Rights holders. The list of rights holders can be browsed by “most recent” or “alphabetic” via the Sort button on the page.
- If you click on the hyper-link name of a rights holder, AtoM takes you to the View rights holder page.
- The View rights holder page lets the authorized user edit and delete the existing rights holder record, or add a new rights holder.
- If you click on the edit button, AtoM takes you to the Edit rights holder template. There are two areas: the Identity area and the Contact area. In the Identity area there is one data entry field, authorized form of name. In the Contact area there is add new button, which allows you to add a new contact person. If you click on the add new button, AtoM opens a contact information dialogue with three tabs, Main, Physical location and Other details. Add as much information into the Related contact information dialogue and click on the Submit button.
- Remember to click on the Save button at the bottom of the rights holder page to save all the new information you have added to the rights holder record. AtoM will reload the Rights holder record in view mode.
- If you click on the Delete button located at the bottom of the Rights holder record when in view mode, AtoM will ask you to confirm that you want to delete the Rights holder record. Click the “Delete” button to delete, or the “Cancel” button to return to Rights holder record view page. If you click “Delete,” the Rights holder record will be permanently deleted.
