Introduction
Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform is capable of the “creation, processing, and interchange of metadata”.(Adobe, 2) and most resembles the well-known XML format. The XMP packets are widely used in image files already, Adobe has integrated XMP into the most well known name in photo editing (Photoshop), 2D graphics creation (Illustrator), video editing (Premiere) and photo management (Bridge) making them the most logical choice for globally defining image metadata standards. This includes licensing information but is mostly used for last date modified, author, and common metadata. The XMP library is available from Adobe in C++ and can be downloaded here. This, among a vast functional list, allows the programmatic reading and writing of these XMP files.
Creative Commons provides simple, easy licenses that anyone can attribute to their works. These licenses have a wide variety of specifications that include allowing for share-alike, commercial and noncommercial uses. The fact that these can so easily be changed and still hold their legal meaning makes the Creative Commons licenses a fantastic choice for those working with images.
XMP Properties – Content Analysis
Among the large number of fields available in the XMP protocol, there are three fields which will be useful for adding the license: “Copyright Notice” (string), “Copyright Status” (boolean), and “Rights Usage Terms” (string). In order for proper attribution, it is also useful to include the option to an author for the work, but is not necessary in the basic case.
The length of these fields, as being a derivative of XML implies, are not limited in size other than what the image format can hold. However having a large field may cause unnecessary bloating to the image file. The full license for a Creative Commons license varies slightly depending on the particular customizations but are approximately 1600 words. Since these licenses have the aim of being in most image files, including full licenses could cause a great deal of clutter on the Internet. Therefore, it would be preferable to include a uniform resource identifier (uri) which Creative Commons provides for all license variations. Inserting this into the “Rights Usage Terms” would be sufficient for providing these terms.
Comparing Packets
Creative Commons provides a tool for generating an XMP packet which can be found here.
The packet generated by the tool available on Creative Common’s website does not make use of “Rights Usage Terms” and instead uses a description, with an XML namespace named “cc”. However, although it has proper XML syntax and does not break XMP syntax, this does not closely follow the XMP specifications as per Adobe’s documentation. This may be possible to include if there is a specific reason for it, but I can’t see an obvious reason for including the namespace. This packet does include the “Copyright Notice” and “Copyright Status” which are correct. However, the “Copyright Notice” contains repetition for languages “en”, “en_US” and “x-default” which could be used as an optional feature within the library.
I used Adobe Bridge to produce an XMP packet using the terms from the Creative Commons generated package to compare. The one produced was very similar, but excluded the aforementioned xml namespace, and did not have repetition for language options. In short, this package generated by Adobe Bridge seems to be a more lean XMP packet and conforms perfectly to the XMP specifications while providing a fully valid license.
Take a look at the packets, the first being the one generated by Creative Common’s XMP packet tool. And the second I generated using Adobe Bridge.
I have attempted to contact Creative Commons Metadata team, and I am awaiting correspondence to inquire about the XMP formatting and other questions regarding embedding metadata. If you have any comments or questions regarding my findings, you can find my contact information under “Contact” on my website.