As international aggregators of cultural heritage digital collections, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Europeana provide access to millions of items from their contributors, yet there has been no common mechanism for informing users how they may use these items – a problem that faces other aggregators and cultural heritage institutions that wish to facilitate use of their digital collections. RightsStatements.org - a set of standardized statements to describe and express rights - is a joint initiative to address this shared need. Europeana’s licensing framework, launched in 2011, provided 13 rights statements, including eight Creative Commons tools and licenses. Following the launch of the DPLA in 2013, Europeana began to explore if their licensing framework could be adopted or extended for use by others like the DPLA. Similarly, the DPLA was looking for an actionable, interoperable rights framework for the rights metadata contributed by its partners. In addition, several of the DPLA’s existing partners were working to create rights frameworks for their own collections, and were keen to share their expertise. A Working Group was formed, and RightsStatements.org was developed. Emily Gore, Director of Content for DPLA, will discuss the need for these statements, the Working Group’s composition and efforts, and plans for growth and governance. Greg Cram, Associate Director for Copyright and Information Policy at New York Public Library, will discuss the content of the statements, and how the NYPL plans to implement them. Mark Matienzo, Collaboration & Interoperability Architect at the Stanford University Libraries, will discuss the technical framework. Emily will conclude with a summary of how DPLA is working to implement the statements with its partners and what people in the audience may do to implement them as well. The panel will be open to questions from and discussion with the audience. Speakers Session Leader : Melissa Gold Fournier, Manager of Imaging Services and Intellectual Property, Yale Center for British Art Co-Presenter : Emily Gore, Director of Content, Digital Public Library of America Co-Presenter : Greg Cram, Associate Director for Copyright and Information Policy, The New York Public Library Co-Presenter : Mark Matienzo, Collaboration & Interoperability Architect, Stanford University Libraries MCN2016 Presenting Sponsor: Piction New Orleans, LA