Negotiating an Agreement
If a drafted agreement using a DBL template is not acceptable by either the Contributor or Distributor organization, then a separate agreement would need to be negotiated externally outside of DBL.
To start negotiating an agreement, the organizations would contact each other directly by email. The contact info is available in the organization’s detail page. Click on Members at the top of the DBL dashboard, then enter the organization name to find its contact info.
Negotiation means the organizations would discuss and collaborate on the terms and conditions of use for the Controlled access content provided by the Contributor that the Distributor wants a license agreement to use. Typically, the Contributor will use one of the DBL templates or one of their own agreements drafted by their organization as a starting point. Then the negotiations will make changes to that document until the drafted agreement is acceptable to both organizations.
When that agreement is finalized and signed externally by both organizations, the Contributor (License Manager or Item Licenser) would click on the + New button in the dashboard header, click Create agreement and then select Controlled access.
After clicking on the Next button, at the top of the next page, use the search bar titled Search distributor organizations to select the Distributor organization with whom you’ve negotiated an agreement. (The search bar will be automatically populated as you type.)
Under the next section titled Choose a template, scroll down to the Community templates and select DBL Full External Agreement Attached as the template to use.
Then scroll to the bottom of the page, set the Expiry date, and upload the negotiated agreement under Required attachment.
Review all the information you’ve entered for accuracy, then click the Send for approval button to finish.
The DBL will notify the Distributor to approve this agreement. After that, the Contributor will be prompted to approve the agreement. After both Distributor and Contributor have approved the agreement, the Distributor is granted access to content files.
To learn more about how this works, refer to the article titled Licensing Process.