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Rights to Richness: Connecting Cultural Artefacts with Rights and Context

Submitted by Ruben Peeters on 07/07/2026 - 07:15

Tracking #: 4108-5322

Authors: 
Ruben Peeters
Giacomo Blanco
Georgios Botsoglou
Isabel Davis
Xuemin Duan
Christian Fuhrhop
Tobias Hendrickx
Maurice Mengel
Deniza Popova
Tommaso Monopoli
Kyriaki Oudatzi
Theodoros Semertzidis
Elisa Simionato
Dieter Suls
Giuseppe Rizzo
Anastasia Dimou

Responsible editor: 
Guest Editors 2025 OD+CH

Submission type: 
Ontology Description
Abstract: 
The Cultural Heritage domain is actively engaged in digitising collections and building a central digital infrastructure, a critical effort supported by European initiatives to preserve artefacts and facilitate their reuse. Integrating diverse cultural heritage data into a central infrastructure is challenging due to the heterogeneity of the data and the limitations of existing data models in preserving contextual information. Furthermore, the lack of machine-understandable rights statements for digital artefacts hinders their reuse. This work addresses these issues by developing a framework that incorporates machine-understandable rights statements and enhances preservation of context during data integration. This paper introduces two key contributions: CACAO, an ontology extending CIDOC-CRM for rights and context with accompanying rights vocabulary and ARTKB, a knowledge graph utilising CACAO. The CACAO ontology was developed in collaboration with four CH institutes, validating its applicability and understandability across diverse data types. The ontology extends CIDOC-CRM by integrating ODRL for structured rights expression and by introducing new, more specific concepts for detailed contextual information. The CACAO ontology serves as a common data model, improving interoperability among CH institutions, enhancing the preservation of original context, and allowing for the definition of flexible usage policies for digital artefacts. This work represents significant progress in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) management and contextual modelling for cultural heritage.
Full PDF Version: 
PDF icon swj4108.pdf
Previous Version: 
Rights to Richness: Connecting Cultural Artefacts with Rights and Context
Tags: 
Reviewed
Long-term Stable Link to Resources: 
https://w3id.org/cacao

Decision/Status: 
Minor Revision

Solicited Reviews:

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Review #1
Anonymous submitted on 01/Sep/2026
Suggestion:
Accept
Review Comment:

As a result of the first-round review, fourteen issues were raised by the reviewer, and all of them were somehow addressed by the authors in this second round. This indicates that the authors found the reviewer's comments valuable for improving the manuscript and incorporated them accordingly into the text. Therefore, I consider that the authors have adequately addressed the reviewer's requests. However, for a final polishing, I recommend a careful revision of table numbering and other minor typographical errors.

Review #2
Anonymous submitted on 05/Oct/2026
Suggestion:
Major Revision
Review Comment:

Certainly, the revised version is much better than the first version, and I would like to thank the authors for their efforts and refinements. My only concern now, is that from a conceptual modeling perspective, it is still a bit confusing. The paper would benefit from a clearer analysis of which elements of CACAO constitute genuine ontological extensions beyond existing standards and which can be represented through CIDOC CRM, CRMdig, ODRL, or SKOS. In particular, concepts such as digital artefacts appear potentially expressible as specialisations of CIDOC CRM classes such as E73 Information Object, while E72 Legal Object and E30 Right already provide a conceptual basis for modelling rights over cultural heritage resources. Furthermore, E13 Attribute Assignment offers a mechanism for representing assertions about objects and relations, including domain-specific relations not explicitly defined in CIDOC CRM. It would therefore be useful to identify explicitly which CACAO classes and properties require new ontological commitments rather than constituting application-level specialisations or controlled vocabulary terms. The relationship with ODRL also deserves further clarification: ODRL concepts such as Asset, Permission, Prohibition, Duty, Action and Constraint appear to address the operational expression of rights policies rather than necessarily requiring new cultural-heritage classes. For example, an ODRL Asset could potentially be aligned with E72 Legal Object, while an ODRL Policy could provide a machine-readable expression of an E30 Right. Similarly, some CACAO terms may be more appropriately represented as SKOS concepts if their primary function is terminological. Clarifying these distinctions would substantially strengthen the paper by demonstrating what CACAO contributes ontologically beyond a structured integration of CIDOC CRM/CRMdig with ODRL and controlled vocabularies.