Network Working Group J. Snell Internet-Draft April 10, 2006 Expires: October 12, 2006 Atom License Extension draft-snell-atompub-feed-license-06.txt Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on October 12, 2006. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract This memo defines an extension to the Atom Syndication Format for associating copyright licenses with Atom feeds and entries. Snell Expires October 12, 2006 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Feed License April 2006 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. The 'license' link relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 7 Snell Expires October 12, 2006 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Feed License April 2006 1. Introduction This document defines how Atom feed publishers can associate copyright licenses with the informational content of an entry. Licenses associated using these mechanisms MAY or MAY not 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. 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]. 3. The 'license' link relation An Atom link element with a 'rel' attribute value of 'license' is used to associate a copyright license with an Atom Feed or Entry. Atom entry, feed and source elements MAY each contain any number of license links but MUST NOT contain more than one with the same href value. The IRI specified by the link's 'href' attribute SHOULD be dereferenceable to return a machine or human-readable representation of the license. Implementors should note that, unlike the Atom rights element, which specifies a human-readable statement of the rights held over a entry or feed, license links apply only to the informational content of the containing element. That is, the presence of a license link relation within an Atom feed element does not extend a license over the various contained entry elements. Likewise, the presence of a license link within an Atom source element does not extend a license over the informational content of the containing entry. Snell Expires October 12, 2006 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Feed License April 2006 For example http://www.example.com/myfeed My Example Feed 2005-07-28T12:00:00Z James tag:entries.com,2005:1 My original entry This is my original entry Multiple license links appearing within an element is an indication that the informational content has been published under multiple copyright licenses. In such instances, each of the linked licenses is considered a mutually exclusive alternative to the others. That is to say, for example, if an entry contains license links to both a Creative Commons License and the General Public License (GPL), the informational content is considered to be licensed either as "Creative Commons OR GPL" as opposed to "Creative Commons AND GPL". If multiple license link relations are specified, each SHOULD contain a title attribute that specifies a human readable label for each license link. 4. Security Considerations As an extension of the Atom Syndication Format, the license link relation is subject to the same security considerations described in section 8 of [RFC4287]. 5. 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]. Snell Expires October 12, 2006 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Feed License April 2006 Attribute Value: license Description: Specifies the IRI of a copyright license associated with the containing feed, entry or source element. Expected display characteristics: None Security considerations: None 6. References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC4287] Nottingham, M. and R. Sayre, "The Atom Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005. Appendix A. Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges the feedback from Mike Linksvayer, Robin Cover, and the members of Atom Publishing Format and Protocol working group during the development of this specification. Snell Expires October 12, 2006 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Feed License April 2006 Author's Address James M Snell Phone: Email: jasnell@gmail.com URI: http://www.snellspace.com Snell Expires October 12, 2006 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Feed License April 2006 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 "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET 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 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 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. Snell Expires October 12, 2006 [Page 7]