Creating and Reviewing License Agreements

In addition to providing an environment for archiving and maintaining scripture project assets, DBL provides tools and procedures for organizations to initiate or request new licensing grants, respond to access requests from partners, and review existing agreements and their details. A summary diagram of the digital licensing workflow provided by the DBL is shown in the previous section. In this section you will find detailed information on each licensing activity or administration tool.

Note

Prerequisites

Establishing new license agreements within DBL between an IP contributor (IPC) and a publishing partner (LCH) is dependent on the following three items already being established:

  1. An existing relationship, or a clear understanding of the nature of the partnership between the IPC and LCH organizations in question, is anticipated. In other words, the DBL system is not intending or expecting to be in the position of facilitating the communications for early or ongoing negotiations. Rather, it is tool through which digital scripture assets and the specific agreements for their use between two parties are processed, recorded, and released.
  2. A licensing document which both parties are willing, in principle, to work together with. See: Managing Licensing Documents
  3. Both organizations (IPC and LCH) must already be registered and enabled within DBL. See: Managing Organizations

IPC Initiates a License Grant to an LCH Partner

When an IPC wishes to release an entry from DBL to a specific partner organization (LCH) they can initiate the grant of a license. After a license grant is made, the LCH will need to accept or decline the grant.

The detailed steps for this process are outlined in the Contributors > Licensing Content section of this manual.

LCH Initiates a Request for Access to an Entry

An LCH may search a DBL entries catalog and initiate a request to the IPC for a specific entry. If a license grant is made by the IPC, the LCH will need to accept or decline the grant.

The detailed steps for this process are outlined in the Publishers > Requesting and Licensing Content section of this manual.

Reviewing Status of Requests

DBL provides a view for organizations to review the status of outstanding access requests. The information presented in this view, and possible action steps offered, will be oriented to the type of organization which the currently logged in user is a member of.

To access the request status view:

  • Select Organizations from the Admin menu visible in the site menu bar.
  • Select the organization you wish to review access requests for (for most users only the organization you are a member of is visible).
  • Select the Requests tab.

DBL will display a list of outstanding access requests, either from the perspective of the recipient IPC, or the requesting LCH. (Any member of either organization who is a party to the request can see the Requests list; You must have Licenser role for the organization to perform any action step to grant or accept a license agreement.)

IPC Views

The Requests tab for an IPC will display a list and status of access requests received from one or more LCHs, for entries managed by the currently logged in IPC. There are two sections displaying “Pending Requests for Owned Entries” and “Pending Requests for Delegated Entries”. In these two sections DBL is displaying outstanding request status for all DBL entries which the currently logged in user’s organization has a management responsibility for.

When a request is received from an LCH, DBL will send an email notification to the IPC with a link to process the request. The Requests tab listing for the entry will also offer a button to Process the request. If an IPC member with Licenser role clicks Process, DBL will open a license agreement grant configuration window for the current request (see: Responding to an Access Request)

../_images/admin_requests_ipcPending_Process.png

If an IPC member with Licenser role has processed an LCH request and granted a license agreement, the entry for this item in the Requests tab view for the IPC will display “Pending Acceptance”. DBL has notified the LCH member(s) with Licenser role and is waiting for their decision to accept or decline the grant (see: Accepting a License Grant)

../_images/admin_requests_ipcPendingAcceptance.png

LCH Views

The Requests tab for an LCH will display a list and status of access requests submitted to one or more IPC organizations for entries requested by the currently logged in LCH.

When a request has been submitted to an IPC, DBL will send an email notification to the IPC with options to process the request. The entry for this item in the Requests tab view for the LCH will display “Pending”.

../_images/admin_requests_lchOutstanding.png

If an IPC has processed a request for an entry and granted a license agreement to the requesting LCH, DBL will send an email notification to the LCH with a link to process the grant. The Requests tab listing for the entry will also offer a button to Process the grant by accepting or declining it (see: Accepting a License Grant).

../_images/admin_requests_lchOutstanding_Process.png

When a license agreement has been granted by an IPC to an LCH, but not yet accepted or declined, DBL will also display the status of the agreement as “(pending)” within listing displayed in the Agreements tab (see Reviewing Current Licensing Agreements below).

../_images/admin_agreements_lchPending.png

When a license agreement has been granted by an IPC and accepted by the LCH, the entry for this item in the Requests tab view for the LCH will display as “Granted”.

../_images/admin_requests_lchGranted.png

DBL will continue to display this entry within the Requests list for one day. After this, the information concerning the agreement can be found in the license agreement list view (below).

Reviewing Current License Agreements

DBL provides a view within the organization administration interface of all current and expired license agreements for the organization which the currently logged in user is a member of.

To access the license agreements list view:

  • Select Organizations from the Admin menu visible in the site menu bar.
  • Select the organization you wish to review license agreements for (for most users only the organization you are a member of is visible).
  • Select the Agreements tab.

In this view you see a table which displays a list of all license agreements for which the organization of the currently logged in user is a party to the agreement, as either IPC or LCH.

Clicking somewhere within a table row (but not specifically on a License Type or History links) will open a window to display a formatted view of the complete agreement text. A button at the bottom left corner of the window provides an option to print the agreement.

../_images/admin_agreements_ipcReview.png

The following columns are displayed. You can click on a column heading to sort the table rows by that column.

  • Name - The name of the DBL entry which the license agreement is for.
  • Entry Type - The type of DBL entry (text, audio etc.).
  • Organization - The partnering organization to the agreement. If you are an IPC looking at this license agreements list, the LCH partner organization will be shown. If you are an LCH, the IPC organization will be shown.
  • License Type - The licensing document used for this agreement, presented as a link. Clicking on the link will display a formatted view of the template source.
  • Date - The date the agreement was accepted by the LCH partner.
  • Expiry - The date the agreement expires.
  • History - Presented as a link named “History”. Clicking on the link will open an agreement history window. The window conveniently displays a table of events gathered from the larger organization history log which are related to the establishment of the selected agreement.
../_images/admin_agreements_ipcReview_history.png

Monitoring Agreement Expiry

DBL provides 3 primary features to help organizations monitor and review which of their license agreements are nearing expiry and may need to be renewed.

  1. For IPCs, the managed entries view displayed on the Entries tab includes a column showing the number of expiring licenses for each entry owned or managed by the organization the currently logged in user is a member of. A license is considered to be ‘expiring’ when its current expiry date is within 90 days or less.

  2. Notifications. DBL will send an email notification to members of an IPC or LCH who have Licenser role, and whose organization has license agreements which are nearing expiry. The following notification schedule is followed:
  • For IPC organizations, notifications about expiring license agreements will be sent initially 90 days prior to expiry, and then 60, 30, 15, and 7 days.
  • For LCH organizations, notifications will be sent 60, 30, and 7 days prior to expiry.

If multiple license agreements expire on the same day, only one notification message will be sent containing a list of expiring agreements.

  1. The license agreements list view table can be sorted by expiry date by clicking on the column heading labeled “Expiry”. This will allow a Licenser to easily locate agreements expiring within a specific time-frame.