Rights Statement

• CURIE: gmeow:RightsStatement
• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/RightsStatement
• Category: class
• Defined by: gmeow:slices/rights
• Box roles: CBox role, TBox role (What is this?)

A reified, machine-readable statement of the rights situation of an entity — an observation in the universal claim stack (observation-spine bridge). Who may do what with it, under what licence, with what copyright, attributed to whom, over what term. The canonical superset of an ODRL Policy / Set: it bears gmeow:Permission, gmeow:Prohibition and gmeow:Duty rules and points at the asset it governs via gmeow:statementAbout (the observedFeature). Promote a flat gmeow:hasLicense / gmeow:hasCopyright to a RightsStatement only when the deontic rules are needed.

Structure

Subclass of: gmeow:Observation, gufo:Relator

Practical Pattern

Use gmeow:RightsStatement as a specialized kind of gmeow:Observation, gufo:Relator. Add statement metadata or a standpoint when the assertion needs provenance, confidence, or vantage.

Example Snippets

These snippets are generated from canonical slice examples and trimmed to the Turtle blocks where this term appears.

Licensed Dataset

• Source: slices/core/rights/examples/licensed-dataset.ttl
• Examples catalog: open in catalog#example-slices-core-rights-examples-licensed-dataset

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: rights are flat-first, promoted on demand ( P4). The
# common case is a single gmeow:hasLicense + gmeow:hasCopyright edge — no relator
# needed. Only when the deontic RULES matter (who may do what, under which duty,
# what is forbidden) is the flat form PROMOTED to a gmeow:RightsStatement bearing
# the ODRL-superset trio: gmeow:Permission / gmeow:Prohibition / gmeow:Duty, each
# over an open gmeow:RightsAction value. A licence is itself an Agreement, aligned
# to CC/ODRL by reference (spdxLicenseId, licenseFamily) — never owl:sameAs (P5).
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/rights/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd:   <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

# --- Promoted form: the deontic rules the flat edge cannot carry.
ex:rights a gmeow:RightsStatement ;
    gmeow:statementAbout ex:dataset ;
    gmeow:hasPermission  ex:permReproduce ;
    gmeow:hasProhibition ex:prohCommercial .

Common Companion Terms

gmeow:Observation

Projects To

External Equivalences

Equivalent or closely aligned targets: dcterms, ladm, odrl, sosa, wd

Linkages

Generated from the canonical mapping DSL. SSSOM files are the generated public interchange form for term equivalences.

Term Equivalences

Projection Coverage

Usage Advice

Use when

• Use when the rights over an asset need first-class deontic rules — explicit permissions, prohibitions, or duties, an ODRL policy, a consent posture, or a conflict-resolution strategy that a flat licence/copyright link cannot carry.

Avoid when

• Avoid for the common case where an asset simply bears a known licence or copyright — use the flat gmeow:hasLicense / gmeow:hasCopyright and promote to a RightsStatement only when the rule layer is genuinely needed.

How to use

• Mint one RightsStatement, point it at the governed asset with gmeow:statementAbout, hang gmeow:hasPermission / gmeow:hasProhibition / gmeow:hasDuty rules over gmeow:RightsAction values, and add gmeow:conflictStrategy and gmeow:rightsType where the policy must be self-resolving; generated ODRL/CC/schema.org projections read it.

Examples

• ex:photoRights a gmeow:RightsStatement; gmeow:statementAbout ex:photo; gmeow:hasPermission ex:mayReproduce; gmeow:hasDuty ex:mustAttribute.

Use For Consumers

• gmeow:consumerAgentMemory
• gmeow:consumerInternalArchive
• gmeow:consumerResearchQueue

Avoid For Consumers

• gmeow:consumerFoafExport
• gmeow:consumerSchemaOrgJsonLd