EIDR

EIDR Overview (Update Feb 2012)
EIDR Interoperability with Other Standards and Identifiers

Technical Overview
Best Practices Guide (New Jan 2012)
API Overview
REST API Reference (Update Feb 2012)
Data Fields Reference (Update Jan 2012)
REST Validation Rules (Update Jan 2012)
Schema Documents
EDIR/UV Technical Note (New Dec 2011)
EIDR: ID FORMAT (New Jan 2012)

Member Participation Agreement
By-laws
IPR Policy
Antitrust Policy
Articles of Incorporation
EIDR Membership Types and Fee Structure
EIDR Registry Terms of Use
EIDR SDK License Agreement

EIDR is a universal Digital Object Identifier (DOI) that uniquely identifies an audiovisual object. It is similar to a UPC code that is used to identify physical packaged goods. EIDR can be used for both physical and digital video objects that are part of the movie and television supply chain.

EIDR is an opaque ID with all information about the registered asset stored in a central registry. Its structure consists of a standard registry prefix, the unique suffix for each asset and a check digit.

EIDR is purely functional without any implication of ownership, making it persistent enough to remain the same despite any change in control or ownership of the underlying asset.

The Entertainment Identifier Registry is the DOI Registration Agency responsible for registering audiovisual objects and providing the necessary infrastructure to allow Registrants to declare and maintain metadata. The Entertainment Identifier Registry consists of a core registry module that assigns unique identifiers (EIDRs), a database for storing the identifiers along with metadata that enables the asset to be uniquely identified and a sophisticated de-duplication module that insures that an EIDR has only been assigned once for a given object.

The Registry has two categories of users – registrants who register media objects of different types by submitting metadata describing the objects to the Registry and lookup users who query or search the Registry using known EIDRs or a variety of search criteria. EIDR provides a web user interface as well as a web services API to enable both categories of users access to the Registry. The web services API is intended for registrants who wish to integrate the use of EIDR into their automated workflows and information systems and for developers who wish to use the Registry service as part of their own product and service offerings such as extended metadata services or rights tracking.

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI^®) is used for identifying content objects in the digital environment. DOI^® names are assigned to any entity for use on digital networks. They are used to provide current information, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet. Information about a digital object may change over time, including where to find it, but its DOI name will not change.

The DOI System provides a framework for persistent identification, managing intellectual content, managing metadata, linking customers with content suppliers, facilitating electronic commerce, and enabling automated management of media. DOI names can be used for any form of management of any data, whether commercial or non-commercial. While the DOI system assigns DOIs, the task of creating and maintaining registries to meet specific industry domain needs belongs to Registration Agencies.

An example of a DOI-based ecosystem currently deployed is one used for the identification of articles in research journals. Created by a non-profit association called CrossRef (the DOI Registration Agency in this instance), the system has been operating since 2000 and has registered over 35 million identifiers. CrossRef also operates part of the distributed and redundant handle lookup system. For more information on the DOI system, please see www.doi.org

The International DOI Foundation (IDF) was created in 1998 to support the needs of the digital intellectual property community in the digital environment, by developing and promoting the Digital Object Identifier system as a common infrastructure for content management. The Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, controlled by an Executive Board elected by the members of the Foundation. Membership is open to all organizations with an interest in the management of information on digital networks.

The IDF governs the DOI System to ensure that all applications follow common rules. The system has several components: the technology is based on open agreed standards, while the infrastructure is defined by agreements between the various organizations which run the system, such as the Registration Agencies (RA) and the technology providers. Each Registration Agency is autonomous and the IDF has no role in determining a RA’s business model or governance.

The Handle System was designed to support the resolution of handles of digital objects to the objects themselves and/or information about them. The EIDR itself is used as a handle for lookup and provides the primary mechanism for resolving an identifier. The system is very flexible in that the data returned from a handle lookup consists of a set of type/value pairs. The individual values from a handle lookup do not typically provide large amounts of data. Rather the Handle System operates as a referral system so that given a DOI one can determine other identifiers that might apply to the asset, where to get the registration metadata or other related data such as content rules or hashes. In some systems, the handle resolves to a referral to the content item itself. Any of these referrals can be easily updated when the data changes (e.g. pointer to registration metadata, pointer to owner, pointer to additional services).

For EIDR, the Handle System supports two key architectural features: the mapping to and from other identifiers and the distributed implementation of registries or other databases. The primary use of this handle would be to lookup the Registry server URL that provides the registration metadata for the work. But the flexibility of having multiple referrals tied to a work allows both redundancy and distribution. For example, if a registry sublicensed other registries to serve rights holders in different geographies, these other registries could all seamlessly fit into the same DOI registration and lookup structure. For more information on the Handle System, please visit www.handle.net

The Registry assigns EIDRs for the full range of movie and television asset types including:

• Feature films
• TV shows, TV series, seasons and episodes
• Short films
• Promotional material (ads, trailers)
• Interactive material

At the most basic level, an EIDR is registered for a ‘work’. EIDRs for new objects can be derived from it or associated with a previously registered object. Each object is referred to by its EIDR and has metadata associated with it. Some example levels are:

• Basic objects from which inheritance flows, such as a movie, series, TV show, or commercial.
• Derivative and related assets, such as edits, language versions, clips, and trailers.
• Instances of an asset, or manifestations which include encoding information.
• Composite works, such as mash-ups or sequences of clips.
• Adjunct material, such as alternate content.

EIDR is designed to be cost-effective for large-scale use and is intended to provide an inexpensive mechanism for tracking even micro-assets all the way down to clips and encodings and combinations. To this end, the metadata required and stored by the Registry is restricted to those core elements that help uniquely identify the object that is being registered.

The system is not intended to replace or compete with commercial metadata providers. EIDR will not provide:

• Metadata intended for consumers,
• Extended or non-factual metadata (e.g., cast & crew, synopses, artwork, ratings, etc.),
• A rights repository.

Rather, EIDR is a B2B service designed to facilitate and support these and other forms of value-added services.

The EIDR Registry includes a deduplication module to determine whether a given submission or submission update would create a distinct registry entry and should be permitted. For each submission or update, the Registry calls the automated de-duplication module which uses a specified set of rules to determine the uniqueness of the object and then notifies the Registry of one of three outcomes; the object is unique, the object is a duplicate, or that the object has potential duplicate candidates which need further review. For objects requiring further review, the Registry operations support staff perform a manual verification to determine if the object is a duplicate.

Yes. EIDR is a global registry designed to support the movie and television industry worldwide.

A submission to EIDR is processed in seconds and the outcome is either a successful issue of an EIDR, a failure because the submission was found to be a duplicate or a notification that manual verification is required to rule out a duplicate. Manual verification is completed within one business day.

There are other standard identifiers in use to identify a subset of movie and television assets. However, EIDR provides comprehensive identification mechanism for ALL types of assets and their components. EIDR specifically targets the emerging requirements of converged digital distribution by providing the granularity and scalability necessary to support today’s evolving ecosystem.

EIDR is not a replacement for other IDs. EIDR has applications that other services do not, plus a basis for building new interoperable applications. See www.doi.org/factsheets/DOIIdentifiers.html for additional information.

EIDR is designed to be interoperable and work seamlessly and in a complementary manner with existing identifiers.

a) EIDR includes a field for identifying any other IDs associated with the asset.

b) An EIDR can be created based on an existing ID to produce an actionable link to additional information about the asset that may be available in the EIDR Registry.

c) In cases of overlap, EIDR and any other registration authority also can agree on standard ways of cross-referencing objects and identifiers and can even establish business relationships to facilitate easy interoperability for commercial users of the identifiers. EIDR freely allows the cross-referencing of its identifiers by other databases.

EIDR provides the foundational namespace for all movie and television objects that are relevant to commerce. This increases supply chain efficiencies by

• Eliminating costly translations between proprietary ID systems.
• Lowering risks of misidentification caused by duplication and lack of ID uniqueness.
• Improving internal asset tracking.
• Providing greater efficiency and accuracy in tracking external transactions between commercial entities that do not share internal databases.
• Improving ability to match assets and metadata from different databases, service providers, or metadata suppliers.

By providing a registry to assign and store universally unique identifiers for a wide range of relevant movie and TV objects and by enabling programmatic interfaces to the Registry for registering and searching records in the Registry on a low-cost non-profit basis, EIDR supports the creation of new value added services. Examples of such enhanced services are:

• More granular and accurate rights tracking and reporting down to the level of clips, composites and encodings,
• Simplified universal search and discovery
• Detailed consumption metrics for individual assets.

In order to maintain uniqueness and accuracy of records in the Registry, registrations are limited to organizations that are approved registrants in the EIDR system. Entities involved in the movie and television industry either directly in the production of content or in its distribution and related services are eligible to apply for registrant status. The EIDR organization reviews and approves candidates that meet criteria for registrants. Registrants pay an annual membership fee that depends on the size of the company as well as the annual number of registrations. Registrants must also conform to the rules and standards set by EIDR with regard to the quality of submissions.

The Registry provides free access to lookup a record using its EIDR. More extensive query and search capability including programmatic interface to the Registry is available at a nominal annual fee. To facilitate widespread adoption of this critical service, EIDR offers very favorable terms of use including the ability to take complete snapshots of the Registry and freely re-use data obtained from the Registry.

No. An EIDR is purely functional without any implication of ownership, making it persistent enough to remain the same despite any change in control or ownership of the underlying asset. The metadata associated with an EIDR is functional in nature, serving to identify the asset without aggregating a wider variety of commercially valuable metadata about the asset.

The Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR) was founded by Movielabs, CableLabs, Comcast and Rovi to meet a crucial need across the entertainment supply chain for universal identifiers for a broad array of audio visual objects. These founding members are also members of the Board of Directors which governs the Registry.

EIDR has been built and is run by a coalition of leaders in the movie and television industry. It is run by an independent non-profit committed to providing an essential service that benefits the whole industry.

EIDR is governed by a board of directors consisting of promoters representing key stakeholders. The board which is currently in the formation stage will include the current founders Movielabs, CableLabs, Comcast and Rovi.

A Technical Advisory Board consisting of representatives from Ascent, Deluxe, Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros, Rovi and MovieLabs guides the organization on matters relating to development, roadmap, etc.

While a member organization may take a snapshot of the Registry, the registration and modification of objects is handled by the centralized EIDR Registry in order to guarantee uniqueness.

EIDR is operated on a non-profit cost-recovery basis. Its mission is to provide a massively scalable identifier and registry system that can support registration of millions of micro-assets that are part of the non-linear, converged digital content workflow. To realize this goal, the Registry offers memberships at annual flat fees that are very nominal and take into account the revenue of the member and the level of activity.

The Registry has been architected and designed to keep operating costs to a minimum even at a very large scale. This will help drive membership fees lower as the member’s number increases.

Please see section on Membership for more details.

EIDR allows its members to maintain full copies of the Registry as needed. This may be required by members who need higher uptime and service levels for resolution services than the EIDR Registry offers. All members will get regular updates relating to the Registry.

Members are free to re-distribute metadata obtained from EIDR for commercial as well as for non commercial purposes.

An EIDR is a functional, opaque ID with no implication of ownership. The IP rights of the underlying data and assets remain with the asset owners. The Registry has non-exclusive license to a small set of metadata fields that are minimally descriptive and have very low IP value.

The Registry by-laws require that members provide reciprocal patent non-asset in order to protect the use and operation of the Registry.

Yes. EIDR is founded on the principle of open participation and welcomes all ecosystem players (commercial and non-profit) to join the Registry as registrant, lookup user or even a promoter. The Registry is intended to provide a foundational namespace for A/V objects that can be leveraged by participant in the eco-system to further their own business needs and offerings.

EIDR by-laws explicitly state that the organization will be operated strictly on non-profit, cost-recovery basis. Membership fees are used to cover the operating costs. As the number of registrants grows, membership dues should decline since the service has been designed to be highly scalable with most costs fixed.

No. There are other proprietary and industry-wide identifiers currently in use for tracking objects in the supply chain. They address other needs that EIDR is not intended to address – for example, ISRC is used for identifying commercial music tracks. Conversely, EIDR helps identify audiovisual objects at a level of granularity that no other identifier system does. Rather than attempt to create a registry to displace existing ones, EIDR has been designed to interoperate with other registries while providing coverage for an expanded set of object types.

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• EIDR Whitepaper

  EIDR, the first comprehensive universal identifier system for all types of movie and television assets.
  
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