Using Creative Commons Metadata in MP3s

This is a developer-oriented document. Read our non-technical account with explanatory comics first.

This document describes how to apply our non-web content guidelines to MP3s.

MP3 embedded metadata is placed in ID3 frames. One of these will be used for embedding Creative Commons license claim metadata:

TCOP (Copyright Text) should include a human-readable license and license claim information. The contents of this frame are displayed by many programs in a "file info" window. Example value: 1995 Example Band. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ verify at http://example.com/cclicenses.html

If "verify at " exists in TCOP, everything after it must be the license claim URL, and if there is a license claim URL then it must be preceded by "verify at ".

Tools

ccLookup and Publisher offer GUI tools for MP3 license claimn embedding and verification metadata generation. Available for Linux, OS X, and Windows.

DMusic tags uploaded MP3s and publishes metadata per the above guidelines for tracks that participating artists have released under a Creative Commons license.