RFC 3937

A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC)

📅 published November 2004, from ietf

A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) 🎀

Okay bestie, here's the tea ☕. This is RFC 3937, from the Network Working Group, written by M. Steidl of the IPTC 🌸. It's Informational (so it's just giving info, not an actual standard 🙈) and it dropped in October 2004 📅. The title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so it's not stepping on anyone's toes 💅.

Status of this Memo ✨

This memo is here to provide information for the Internet community 🦋. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind, and distribution of it is unlimited 💜.

Copyright Notice 🌈

Abstract 🧚

This doc describes a URN (Uniform Resource Name) namespace for identifying persistent resources published by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) ✨. These resources include XML Data Type Definition files (DTD), XML Schema, Namespaces in XML, XSL stylesheets, other XML based document and documents, and documents of other data formats like PDF documents, Microsoft Office documents and others 📄.

Table of Contents 📑

1.  Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
2.  IANA URN Specification Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
    2.1.  Namespace ID. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
    2.2.  Registration Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
    2.3.  Declaration of syntactic structure. . . . . . . . . . .   3
    2.4.  Relevant ancillary documentation. . . . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.5.  Identifier uniqueness considerations. . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.6.  Identifier persistence considerations . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.7.  Process of identifier assignment. . . . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.8.  Process for identifier resolution . . . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.9.  Rules for Lexical Equivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.10. Conformance with URN Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.11. Validation mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
    2.12. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
3.  Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
4.  Namespace Considerations and Community Considerations . . . .   6
5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
7.  References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
    7.1.  Normative References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
    7.2.  Informative References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
Author's Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
Full Copyright Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1. Introduction 🦋

Okay so the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) is a non-profit consortium of the world's major news agencies and news industry vendors 📰. It develops and maintains technical standards for the news business, and those standards are used by virtually every major news organization in the world 🌍. IPTC was established in 1965 🎀.

Since the 1990's, IPTC's standardization work has been based on open standards like first SGML, then the XML [W3CXML] family of standards, MIME, Unicode, and so on 💜. It's giving open-source energy 🫶.

As some of these standards require identification of resources, IPTC was looking for a technology for globally unique, persistent and location-independent identifiers. For this reason, it decided to implement URNs as described in "URN Syntax" [RFC2141] 🔥.

This namespace specification is for a formal namespace 💅.

2. IANA URN Specification Template 🌸

2.1. Namespace ID 🎀

"iptc" requested ✨.

2.2. Registration Information 📋

Here's the registration info, exactly as it's written 💖:

Registration Version Number: 1
Registration Date: 2003-11-11

      Declared registrant of the namespace:

   Registering organization:
      International Press Telecommunications Council IPTC
      Royal Albert House
      Sheet Street
      Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1BE
      www.iptc.org

   Designated contact person:
      Michael Steidl
      Managing Director
      mdirector@iptc.org

2.3. Declaration of syntactic structure 🧚

Okay this is the big one, so get comfy 🛋️. All URNs assigned by IPTC will have a Namespace Specific String (NSS) with the following hierarchical structure 🌳.

At the top of the hierarchy, there are three branches 🌈:

std
std-draft
workdoc

The "std" branch hierarchy 💜

The std branch URNs will be assigned to IPTC resources used for specifying and explaining any aspect of an IPTC standard 📘.

The NSS in the std branch will have this general structure ✨:

urn:iptc:std:{std-name}:{std-version}:{res-group}
    {:res-name}?{:res-version}?

Here's what each part means, bestie 🫶:

std-name is a unique identifier for an IPTC standard.
std-version reflects the version of this standard. The value current will be assigned to point at resources of the current version of a standard.
res-group: this field will take only three values 🎀:
- spec for all resources specifying a standard,
- doc for all resources used for additional documentation of and to support the use of a standard,
- xmlns for defining an XML namespace [W3CXMLNS].
res-name is an identifier for a tangible resource. The name should describe the content or the use of the resource. Since not all resources are tangible, this value is optional 🍓.
res-version reflects the version of this resource as long as it takes a physical format, like a file, for example. Since not all resources are of a physical kind, this value is optional 🦋.

The "std-draft" branch hierarchy 🌸

The std-draft branch URNs will be assigned to IPTC resources used for specifying and explaining any aspect of an IPTC standard while it's in draft status. That means the resource is not formally approved by the IPTC Standards body yet 🙈.

The NSS in the std branch will have this general structure 💅:

urn:iptc:std-draft:{std-name}:{std-version}:{res-group}
    {:res-name}?{:res-version}?

The substructure of urn:iptc:std-draft is identical to that of urn:iptc:std, so find all the explanations there 🔁.

The "workdoc" branch hierarchy 👑

The workdoc branch URNs will be assigned to IPTC resources that aren't directly related to IPTC standards, but to the work of IPTC itself 🛠️.

The NSS in the doc branch will have this general structure 🌈:

urn:iptc:workdoc:{group-id}:{doc-id}:{doc-version}{:doc-descr}?

Where 💖:

group-id is a unique identifier for working groups and working areas of IPTC, and it constitutes a document group.
doc-id is a unique identifier for a document within a document group.
doc-version reflects the version of this work document.
doc-descr is an optional concise description of the document content.

2.4. Relevant ancillary documentation 💤

None.

2.5. Identifier uniqueness considerations 🔑

Identifier uniqueness will be enforced by the Managing Director of IPTC, who will assign unique identifiers to all resources identified by a URN 👩‍💼.

2.6. Identifier persistence considerations 🫶

IPTC is committed to maintaining the accessibility and persistence of all resources that are identified by an IPTC URN 💜.

2.7. Process of identifier assignment 📝

Assignment is limited to the owner of this namespace and its authorities 🔒.

2.8. Process for identifier resolution 🗺️

IPTC will develop an appropriate mechanism that maps all assigned URNs to Uniform Resource Locators (URL). It's specifically meant to enable web-based resolution of URNs 🌐.

2.9. Rules for Lexical Equivalence ⚖️

No special considerations. The rules for lexical equivalence of RFC 2141 apply ✨.

2.10. Conformance with URN Syntax ✅

No special considerations.

2.11. Validation mechanism 🎀

None specified. IPTC will develop a mechanism for resolving URNs to URLs (see 2.8), and this mechanism will also show whether a URN is valid 💖.

2.12. Scope 🌍

Global.

Author's Address ✨

okay so the author is Michael Steidl 💖 from IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council), and here's where you can reach him 🎀

Michael Steidl
IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council)
Royal Albert House
Sheet Street
Windsor SL4 1BE
United Kingdom

Phone: +44 (1753) 705 051
EMail: mdirector@iptc.org

Full Copyright Statement 🌈

okay, legal stuff time, but make it cute 💅 the copyright belongs to The Internet Society (2004) 🦋

this document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions in BCP 78 🌸 and except for what's set out there, the authors keep all their rights 👑

THE DOCUMENT AND THE INFORMATION IN IT ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 💀

Intellectual Property 🔥

the IETF is not taking a side 🙈 on whether any intellectual property rights, or other rights that somebody might claim over the technology in this document, are valid or how far they reach. it's also not saying whether a license under those rights is available, and it hasn't gone looking for them either. if you want to know how the IETF handles rights in its documents, check out BCP 78 and BCP 79 🧚

copies of IPR disclosures that were sent to the IETF Secretariat are available, along with any assurances of licenses that were promised. the same goes for the results of any attempt to get a general license or permission for implementers or users of this specification to use the proprietary rights 🍓 you can find all of this in the IETF's online IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr

and the IETF really wants to hear from you 🫶 if you know about any copyrights, patents, patent applications, or other proprietary rights that might cover technology needed to implement this standard, tell them! send it to ietf-ipr@ietf.org ✨

Acknowledgement 💜

the RFC Editor function is currently funded by the Internet Society 🌸 so a big thank you to them 🎀

📦 where this page comes from

ietf: rfc3937 2004-11
💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on 2026-10-16: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms