License Deeds (Metadata)
Creative Commons license deeds will display information about the referring work if available. This page documents what information is displayed by the deeds.
Contents
How it Works
When you visit a CC legal deed by clicking on a link from a licensed work, CC looks at the page you came from (the referrer) to see if it contains information about the licensed work. This information can include how the creator wants to be attributed, who identified a work as in the public domain, etc. If present, this information is displayed for the user, and used to generate copy and paste attribution/citation HTML.
Limitations
Works that require a password to access them can not be checked by the server software.
If the referring page contains multiple works under the same license (even with properly scoped metadata), we can not determine which link was clicked on. In that situation, we err on the side of certainty and do not display the information.
If the software can not unambiguously determine the title or attribution information, we err on the side of certainty and do not display the information.
Features
The Creative Commons License Deeds will provide extra information about the referrer in three general categories:
- How to attribute/cite the work
- Work registration details
- Where to read more permissions assigned to the work
Work Attribution / Citation
The standard Creative Commons License Class Deeds(all non-Public Domain licenses) will display a notice instructing how the referrer must be attributed and generate an HTML+RDFa marking that can be used to attribute the work when sufficient metadata is available on the referring page. The Public Domain Deed's provide similar functionality; an HTML+RDFa string that can be used as a citation for the referring work in the Public Domain when sufficient metadata is available. The tables below describe which metadata triples must be available, and how each triple can affect the output seen on the deeds.
This document contains prefixed identifiers for RDFa predicates, a table of these prefixes is presented at the bottom of this document.
Standard Licenses
Supported RDFa Predicates (in order of precedence):
- Attribution Name: cc:attributionName, foaf:name of dct:creator, foaf:name of dc:creator
- Attribution URL: cc:attributionURL
- Title: dct:title, dc:title
Assuming the referring URI is http://example.com/work:
| Attribution Name | Attribution URL | Title | Marking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example | http://example.com/ | Testing |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<span property="dct:title">Testing</span>
(<a rel="cc:attributionURL" property="cc:attributionName"
href="http://example.com/">Example</a>) /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">
CC BY 3.0
</a>
</div>
|
| Example | http://example.com/ |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
about="http://example.com/work">
<a rel="cc:attributionURL" property="cc:attributionName"
href="http://example.com/">Example</a> /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">
CC BY 3.0
</a>
</div>
|
|
| Example | Testing |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<span property="dct:title">Testing</span>
(<span property="cc:attributionName">Example</span>) /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">
CC BY 3.0
</a>
</div>
|
|
| Example |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
about="http://example.com/work">
<span property="cc:attributionName">Example</span> /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">
CC BY 3.0
</a>
</div>
|
||
| http://example.com/ | Testing |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<a rel="cc:attributionURL"
property="dct:title"
href="http://example.com/">Testing</a> /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">
CC BY 3.0
</a>
</div>
|
|
| http://example.com/ |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
about="http://example.com/work">
<a rel="cc:attributionURL"
href="http://example.com/">http://example.com/</a> /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">
CC BY 3.0
</a>
</div>
|
Public Domain
Supported RDFa Predicates (in order of precedence):
- Curator: dct:publisher, dc:publisher, marcel:dtc
- Curator Title: dct:title of Curator, dc:title of Curator, foaf:name of Curator
- Creator: dct:creator, dc:creator, cc:attributionURL
- Creator Title: dct:title of Creator, dc:title of Creator, foaf:name of Creator
- Title: dct:title, dc:title
<style> .field { background:#aaa; } .active { background:#fdd; } </style>
| Curator | Curator Title | Creator | Creator Title | Title | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| http://example.com/ | Example | http://testing.com/ | Testing | Work Title |
<script type="text/javascript"> $("#pd_marking").each('td.field').click(function() {
$(this).toggle('active');
}); </script>
| Curator | Curator Title | Creator | Creator Title | Citation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| http://example.com/ | Example | http://testing.com/ | Testing | Work Title |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<span property="dct:title">Work Title</span> /
<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator"
property="cc:attributionName"
href="http://example.com/">Example</a>
(<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:publisher"
href="http://testing.com/">Testing</a>) /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">
CC0 1.0
</a>
</div>
|
| http://example.com/ | Example | http://testing.com/ | Testing |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator"
property="cc:attributionName"
href="http://example.com/">Example</a>
(<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:publisher"
href="http://testing.com/">Testing</a>) /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">
CC0 1.0
</a>
</div>
|
|
| http://example.com/ | Example | http://testing.com/ |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator"
property="cc:attributionName"
href="http://example.com/">Example</a>
(<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:publisher"
href="http://testing.com/">http://testing.com/</a>) /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">
CC0 1.0
</a>
</div>
|
||
| http://example.com/ | Example |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator"
property="cc:attributionName"
href="http://example.com/">Example</a> /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">
CC0 1.0
</a>
</div>
|
|||
| http://example.com/ |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator"
href="http://example.com/">http://example.com/</a> /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">
CC0 1.0
</a>
</div>
|
||||
| http://testing.com/ | Testing | Work Title |
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
about="http://example.com/work">
<span property="dct:title">Work Title</span> /
(<a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:publisher"
href="http://testing.com/">Testing</a>) /
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">
CC0 1.0
</a>
</div>
|
Examples
We are currently developing comprehensive examples which will supersede these; these examples are likely to go away, break, or be otherwise changed at some point in the future.
<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"> <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"> <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png" /> </a> <br /> This page, by <a property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL" href="http://lessig.org/">Lawrence Lessig</a>, is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"> Creative Commons Attribution License</a>. </div>
To see the examples, visit the work pages (listed here) and click through to the deed.
- http://labs.creativecommons.org/~nathan/tests/pdm/monalisa.html Public Domain Mark with use guidelines
- http://labs.creativecommons.org/~nathan/tests/attrib.html Basic attribution information
- http://labs.creativecommons.org/~nathan/tests/pic/guidelines.html CC0 with use guidelines
- http://labs.creativecommons.org/~nathan/info/decoupling.html Attribution information with registration
Consumed Metadata
- xhtml:license, cc:license, dct:license
- dct:publisher, dct:creator
- Registration metadata; see Describing Work Registrations for details.
Namespaces:
- xhtml
- cc
- dct
- dc
- sioc
