# Re: URN Usage

Dale Dougherty (dale@ora.com)
Fri, 17 Sep 1993 01:02:20 -0700

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    From: dale@ora.com (Dale Dougherty)

    Message-Id: <9309170102.ZM25869@rock.west.ora.com>

    Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 01:02:20 -0700

    In-Reply-To: Richard  Wiggins <WIGGINS@msu.edu>

    To: Richard  Wiggins <WIGGINS@msu.edu>,

            "William A. Weems" <wweems@oac3.hsc.uth.tmc.edu>,

    Subject: Re: URN Usage

On Sep 17, 12:07am, Richard Wiggins wrote:
} Subject: Re: URN Usage
>
>At the Columbus IETF I recall Cliff Lynch pointing out that publishers
>assign different ISBNs to a title that comes out in paper and cloth --
>same "intellectual content" but different format. Now that may just be
>to provide separate handles for ordering -- but it also makes sense when
>you think about the text and diagrams being smaller, durability, etc.
>
>Maybe the answer is that Dr. Weems gets to call the GIF and the JPEG
>the same URN if he produced them, but anyone doing a transformation
>outside his control must use a distinct URN?
>

I thought I might add here that one reason that hard cover and
softcover books have different ISBNs is that they are often
published by different publishers. In other words, one publisher
who owns an intellectual property can sell the specific rights
such as to create paperback books to another publisher.
It is not so much a format issue as a rights issue -- one
publisher may be able to exploit those rights (mass market
paperbacks) better than another.

When we have published a book in hard and soft cover, they
have different ISBNs; and a set comprised of two books,
which have their own ISBNs, also has its own ISBN. In these
cases, this is largely an ordering issue -- allowing bookstores
to identify unique products.

Rob Raisch and I talked over some of these issues when he was
doing work on his sample URN implementation. I think we reached
the conclusion that a URN is essentially a product identifier,
which represents the right to use an intellectual property
and distribute it in some tangible form. Content is not the decisive factor.
The rights to that content are represented by a
product. I could conceivably license Postscript distribution
rights for a particular online book while retaining all other rights
to create products from the same property in forms other than
PostScript.

In brief, the URN should identify unique products, not intellectual
properties. Many different products are possible from the same
intellectual property and I'm not sure it is necessary to track
that relation other than through contracts.

Dale

    --
    Dale Dougherty (dale@ora.com)
    Publisher, Global Network Navigator, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
    103A Morris Street, Sebastopol, California 95472
    (707) 829-3762 (home office); 1-800-998-9938

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