Abstract
Adds support for the atom:copyright element as a child of atom:entry. The intent is to allow for the expression of an entry's copyright information in cases where the copyright for an entry is different from the copyright of the enclosing feed. (Proposed By: BobWyman)
Status
Accepted
Rationale
The creator of a feed may claim copyright for the feed as a collection of entries even though one or more of the individual entries are covered by other copyrights. Given this, it is inappropriate, in some cases, to extrapolate from a feed's copyright that the feed's copyright statement covers all of the entries of the feed. Thus, it is appropriate to allow the explicit expression of copyright for the individual entries of a feed while preserving the ability to express copyright for the feed as a whole.
Proposal
Two changes to the current specification are proposed.
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Clarify scope of the atom:copyright element of an atom:feed
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Add an atom:copyright element as a supported element of atom:entry
The modified sections would read:
4.10 "atom:copyright" Element
The "atom:copyright" element is a Content construct that conveys a human-readable copyright statement for the feed. atom:feed elements MAY contain an atom:copyright element, but MUST NOT contain more than one.
The atom:copyright element SHOULD NOT be used to convey machine-readable licensing information.
The atom:copyright may be assumed to apply to all entries contained by the feed except those entries which contain atom:copyright elements. The atom:copyright element MUST, if present, be considered to apply to the feed as a collection of entries.
4.13.?? "atom:copyright" Element
The "atom:copyright" element is a Content construct that conveys a human-readable copyright statement for the entry. atom:entry elements MAY contain an atom:copyright element, but MUST NOT contain more than one.
The atom:copyright element SHOULD NOT be used to convey machine-readable licensing information.
If an atom:entry element does not contain an atom:copyright element, then the atom:copyright element of the containing atom:feed, if present, should be considered to apply to the atom:entry.
Impacts
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Improves the clarity and granularity of copyright claims in Atom feeds.
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Potentially increases the complexity of generating, processing and presenting entries since greater granularity of copyrights may need to be presented.
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Provides a means for synthetic feed generators to pass forward copyright claims made in feeds from which entries may have been extracted.