[Flac-dev] Proposal for Discussion: LICENSE and COPYRIGHT tags on Vorbis Comments

[Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves]

Hello all,

It has come to my attention in a rather unfortunate chat that some
artists do not use Vorbis (or FLAC) because they offer no standard way
to put a license into it.  In an age of Creative Commons and
Copyright-awareness this is a valid concern, although I'm not sure how
those artists work with MP3's ID3 in a standard way, considering all
the hacks floating around.

Anyway, Ogg Metadata is so far vaporware, and I rather focus on the
here and now.  As such, I looked into Vorbis Comments and decided to
create the standard tags that should be used for this purpose.  Those
will in theory work on all software, be it encoder or decoder, and
will please the artists.  This proposal posted on the XiphWiki is now
open for discussion and may, or not, be endorsed by Xiph soon.

~*~

Straight from //wiki.xiph.org/index.php/LICENSE_and_COPYRIGHT_tags_on_Vorbis_Comments

Currently, these may be used on Vorbis, Speex, FLAC, and Theora as
these formats are compatible with the Vorbis Comments schema.

Vorbis Comments is a simple tagging format, and not a metadata system,
and is stored inside files. It may be compared with ID3, but in
opposition to it, Vorbis Comments are a clear and coherent standard,
and not a pile of hacks. Vorbis Comments are written in UPPER CASE.

This proposal states two new tags, LICENSE and COPYRIGHT.

The LICENSE tag must store an URI pointing to the relevant license
documentation.

 Example:
 LICENSE=http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The COPYRIGHT tag must store the name of the authoring person or
entity. A date should not be stored here, as a DATE tag already
exists.

 Example:
 COPYRIGHT=Xiph.Org Foundation

~*~

I would like to hear from those who agree and disagree with this proposal.

-Ivo