Creative Commons Metadata and XMP

XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) facilitates embedding metadata in files using a subset of RDF. Most notably XMP supports embedding metadata in PDF and many image formats, though it is designed to support nearly any file type.

The Creative Commons licensing process offers a XMP template which may be used to mark files within XMP-supporting Adobe applications (step-by-step how-to document).

LaTeX users may use the pdflatex macro.

PdfLicenseManager is a standalone GUI/command line tool for embedding XMP in PDFs.

We have a PHP tool/library for embedding XMP in JPEGs, useful in, e.g., web gallery programs. See the xmp/php-jpeg module in the cctools sourceforge subversion repository.

Note on Visible Copyright Notice in PDFs

Even when embedded with XMP metadata a licensed PDF document should include a visible copyright notice as described in HOWTO Tag HTML pages.

XMP Rights Management Schema

XMP defines a rights management schema (see section 4.2.5). Creative Commons sets the following properties (example values):

xapRights:Copyright — This work is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ verify at http://example.com/pdf-metadata.html (Replace URL following 'verify at' with URL containing metadata about the XMP-embedded file.)

xapRights:Marked — False if Public Domain, True otherwise.

xapRights:WebStatement — http://example.com/pdf-metadata.html (Replace with URL containing metadata about the XMP-embedded file.)

We also set cc:license to maintain a direct reference to the license URL.

cc:license — http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ (Replace with relevant license URL.)

Future

Creative Commons is considering recommending XMP as the preferred format for embedded metadata, given its support for numerous file formats and the balkanized state of embedded metadata standards. Others are appearently coming to the same conclusion, e.g., Microsoft has announced support for XMP in Vista applications, see http://blogs.msdn.com/pix/archive/2006/08/23/715340.aspx

The XMP logo is either a registered trademark or tradmark of the Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

Developer Challenges

We have setup some XMP developer challenges to encourage the use of XMP and also to do some research as to what is already supported and what we support.