About the Content Reference Forum

The Content Reference Forum (CRF) is an open effort of companies from diverse industries chartered to facilitate the distribution of legitimate content in the real world of contractual arrangements and peered environments. It believes that achieving the full potential of digital content distribution, in a way that satisfies consumers and content owners, will require bringing together standards and technologies from different communities, via a collaborative effort by content owners and technology companies.

Content References Architecture
At the crux of The Content Reference Forum's architecture are "Content References," data packages that uniquely identify content and the context in which it will be used. Content References are resolved by "Reference Services" that determine the right content, user context (including rendering environment, language and location) and commercial terms of usage.  The "Reference Service" facilitates the seamless acquisition of appropriate content (e.g., matching consumer's preferences and platform capabilities) by providing an offer or offers for the consumer to buy the content, or connecting the consumer to the appropriate retail source, per contractual agreements for content distribution.

A real world example of a Content Reference is when a consumer wishes to share a video file with a friend.  Via the consumer's personal computer, she sends the friend a "Content Reference" - a pointer describing the content and the prior value chain participation (e.g., an original retailer). When the friend clicks on the reference, her computer messages a "Reference Service" with another “Content Reference” which unites the information about the content and its distribution parameters with the information supplied by the friend (e.g. her country, preferred device and format). The "Reference Service" checks this information against contractual agreements contained in the Reference Service, and presents a set of purchase or promotional offers to the friend. This is all done transparently to both consumers.  

Technology Specifications
CRF promotes the adoption of specifications and design guidelines, leveraging existing standards, to create an open framework for interoperable, platform- and business model-independent digital content distribution.  Over the next few years, CRF will continually issue specifications for public review, modify them and encourage participation and adoption by relevant parties looking to benefit from a universal way to distribute digital content across various mediums and geographies. 

The initial set of specifications being offered for review in December 2003 is CRF Baseline Profile v1.0, which covers some of the aspects of content distribution using Content References architecture. CRF Baseline Profile v1.0 assumes interaction of software agents on Internet-available computer-based platforms and covers specifications for messaging, service description and discovery, basic content references structure, identification and description of content and of user environment, expressions of rights, offers, licenses and contracts and reference resolution protocol.

At the core of the specifications are formats of Content References and a profile of the Contracts Expression Language (CEL), a language created by CRF to express and enforce complex contractual agreements. CEL is designed to automate determination of the appropriate offerings or other actions and make the commerce fully dynamic and accommodative of any business model.  CEL is being harmonized with the international e-business standards and international law through the United Nations/CEFACT.

This set of specifications is not envisioned as a complete "blueprint" for the Content References architecture, but rather as the first step to enable experimentation and solicit feedback. Specifications for Content References are being harmonized with relevant standards from MPEG, OASIS, W3C and WS-I. A liaison has already been formed with MPEG.