ITWire

According to the launch announcement, "Participants in the project will identify what works, what doesn't work, what exists already and what is yet required. Technical work will be undertaken by experts from across the media industry and recommendations will be made to link the various strands of rights-management data needed for the modern management of online copyright.

"This approach will benefit business users and consumers trying to find and use material, and will be business-model neutral so will facilitate commercial and non-commercial/cultural use of content."

The project is the brainchild of the European Publishers Council, a high level group of chairmen and CEOs of leading European media corporations actively involved in multimedia markets spanning newspaper, magazine, book, journal, internet and online database publishers, and radio and TV broadcasting.

It is based on an idea submitted by the European Publishers Council to the European Commission's Information Society Directorate General (DG InfSo), in response to a competition launched by vice president Neelie Kroes in October 2010 that called for "Big Ideas for the Digital Agenda".

The LCC's backers say it has received considerable support from DG InfSo and other parts of the Commission, as well as from many members of the European Parliament and Member States. The current organisation has evolved from a pilot undertaken in 2011.