Network Working Group J. Snell
Internet-Draft August 31, 2006
Expires: March 4, 2007
Atom License Extension
draft-snell-atompub-feed-license-08.txt
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
This memo defines an extension to the Atom Syndication Format for
associating licenses with Atom feeds and entries.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Experimental Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The "license" link relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 8
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1. Introduction
This document defines how Atom feed publishers can associate licenses
with the metadata of a feed or entry. Licenses associated using
these mechanisms might be machine readable and are intended to
communicate the various rights and obligations others may have with
regards to the associated Atom Feed or Entry.
1.1. Experimental Status
Associating licenses with feeds and entries using the mechanisms
defined by this specification is currently considered to be largely
experimental. While it is a common practice for feed publishers to
associate licenses with syndicated content, there are still very few
feed consumers that utilize such metadata. As it is not yet certain
how these mechanisms will be used, implementations and feedback are
encouraged.
It must also be noted that licenses associated with feeds or entries
using these mechanisms are advisory and are not, by themselves,
legally binding. Nor can a license associated with a feed or entry
restrict or forbid access to, redistribution, aggregation, caching
and display of those items by third party intermediaries such as
search engines and so-called "online aggregators".
1.2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119].
1.3. Terminology
The term "link relation" used in this specification refers to the
value of the Atom link elements "rel" attribute as defined in section
4.2.7.2 of [RFC4287].
The term "entry content" refers to the value of the content element
as defined in section 4.13 of [RFC4287] and to any resources
identified by the content element "src" attribute.
For feed elements, the term "metadata" refers to the values and
attributes of the author, category, contributor, generator, icon, id,
link, logo, rights, subtitle, title, and updated elements (as defined
by [RFC4287]), as well as all extension elements appearing as
children of the feed element and all elements appearing as children
of the author and contributor elements. It also includes the
selection and arrangement of entry elements contained by the feed but
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not the metadata or content of the entries themselves.
For entry elements, "metadata" refers to the values and attributes of
the author, category, content, contributor, id, link, published,
rights, source, summary, title, and updated elements, as well as all
extension elements appearing as children of the entry element and all
elements appearing as children of the author and contributor
elements.
2. The "license" link relation
The "license" link relation associates a license with a feed or
entry.
Feed and entry elements MAY contain any number of "license" link
relations but MUST NOT contain more than one with the same
combination of href and type attribute values. The IRI specified by
the link's 'href' attribute SHOULD be dereferenceable to return a
representation of the license. The license representation MAY be
machine readable.
"License" link relations appearing within a feed MUST apply to the
metadata of the containing feed element only and do not extend over
the metadata or content of any contained entries.
Entry content might include or reference material from other sources.
Licenses associated with an entry MUST NOT be assumed to cover such
material. Implementations cannot necessarily trust that publishers
have the right to license material claimed to be covered by any
associated license. Care should be taken when making decisions based
on the referenced license.
Feeds and entries can be dual-license by using multiple "license"
link relations specifying different href attribute values. For
instance, if an entry specifies "license" links identifying both a
Creative Commons License and the General Public License (GPL), the
entry is considered to be dual-licensed as either Creative Commons OR
GPL as opposed to Creative Commons AND GPL.
If multiple license link relations are specified, each SHOULD contain
a title attribute specifying a human-readable label for the license.
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2.1. Example
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<id>http://www.example.com/myfeed</id>
<title>My Example Feed</title>
<updated>2005-07-28T12:00:00Z</updated>
<link href="http://www.example.com/myfeed" />
<link rel="license" type="application/rdf+xml"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf" />
<rights>
Copyright (c) 2005. Some rights reserved. This feed
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial
Use License. It contains material originally published by
Jane Smith at http://www.example.com/entries/1 under the
Creative Commons Attribute License.
</rights>
<author><name>James</name></author>
<entry>
<id>tag:entries.org,2005:1</td>
<title>Atom Powered Robots Run Amok</title>
<updated>2005-06-28T12:00:00Z</updated>
<link href="http://www.example.org/entries/1" />
<summary>Atom Powered Robots Run Amok</summary>
<author><name>Jane Smith</name></author>
<link rel="license" type="text/html"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/" />
</entry>
</feed>
3. Security Considerations
When "license" link relations are used in Atom documents, the
security considerations specified in [RFC4287] Section 8 apply.
4. IANA Considerations
This specification defines one new Atom link relation type to be
registered in the IANA Registry of Link Relations as defined by
[RFC4287].
Attribute Value: license
Description: Specifies the IRI of a license associated with
the containing feed, entry or source element.
Expected display characteristics: None
Security considerations: When "license" link relations are used
in Atom documents, the security considerations for
handling links in Atom documents apply.
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5. References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4287] Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom
Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005.
Appendix A. Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the feedback from Mike Linksvayer,
Robin Cover, Lisa Dussealt, Bjorn Hohrmann, Frank Ellermann, and the
members of Atom Publishing Format and Protocol working group during
the development of this specification.
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Author's Address
James M Snell
Phone:
Email: jasnell@gmail.com
URI: http://www.snellspace.com
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Intellectual Property Statement
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
Disclaimer of Validity
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
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ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
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Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject
to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and
except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.
Acknowledgment
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
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