XSPF track license extension

This document describes an extension for XML Shareable Playlist Format (XSPF). This version is a first-draft proposal. This proposal is not ready for use. Comments by the internet community are requested.

[[fixme: IESG boilerplate]]

Technology Context

The extension is to be used in an XSPF link element at the track level. That is, the extension may be used when an XSPF track element contains a link element.

The content of the XSPF link element is a URI. The link element has an attribute named "rel" which also contains a URI. The rel URI is an identifier for a specific meaning of the URI in the element content. This identifier may also be a locator for a resource which documents the meaning of the URI in the element content. This document, in its original form and at its original URI, is such a definition.

When the URI [[fixme: final canonical URI for this document]] has been used as the value of a rel attribute on a track-level link element, the URI in the element content is defined as follows.

Definition of link element content

• It is the URI of a license under which the track has been released.
• For the purposes of XSPF content resolution, it is a query specifier such that a resource which matches the track definition should be under that license. An XSPF processor which encounters a link element defined per this specification SHOULD NOT resolve the link to a resource not under the specified license, unless the processor believes that the license is inaccurate.
• As with XSPF track query elements such as the artist and duration fields, the license MAY do double duty as metadata to be displayed by user agents and MAY be used as an assertion about the license under which matching tracks have been released.

Example

An example usage is:

<link rel="[[fixme: final canonical URI for this document]]">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/</link>

Security

The license is only a hint as to the actual license of any potentially matching resource. A content resolver should take care to manage the likelihood that the specified license is inconsistent with resources that are otherwise a good match for the track description. Much like any information that may be conveyed by feeds or even web pages, a processor can trust some people or sites and not others. If there are legal risks caused by such a license hint being inconsistent, a processor should look for confirmation elsewhere.

Copyright on this document

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.