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. Click on Members at the top of the DBL dashboard, then enter the organization name to find its website.
Distributors may also find the email of a Contributor org's License manager by viewing a content item's summary page and click on the LIcense tab. Then click on the Request agreement button to see the Contributor org's list of License managers on the right sidebar. Click on the envelope icon next to a License manager's name to send an email.
Negotiation means the organizations would discuss and collaborate on the terms and conditions of use for the Controlled access content. 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.
Upload the External Agreement to DBL
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, 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 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.