licensing creative-commons
EXIF metadata for providing CC attribution
<p>I want to use a CC-licenced image to produce a small banner for promoting an academic conference. The banner will be included in th Call for Papers which will be distributed by email.</p>

<p>The space on the banner is on a premium (size around 640x150), so adding attribution information on it is not possible. Appending the attribution as text to the email will probably be perceived as obtrusive by the recipients.</p>

<p>Is it acceptable to provide the required attribution in the EXIF metadata of the produced banner?</p>

<p>Are there any other unobtrusive options I should consider?</p>

<p>Yes, this is okay. </p>

<p>Creative Commons licenses don't mandate the way that you must attribute. As long as the original creator of the work is attributed in some way <em>that is accessible</em> to whoever would like it. If it's not necessarily accessible, then you've probably got a problem. </p>

<p>However, the EXIF metadata doesn't really sound good because it's not really accessible to people. The reason for attribution is so that the original author of the work can be credited. If no one knows who the original author is, then what's the point of the license (it's better off in something like the public domain). </p>

<p>If your email uses HTML formatting, you could probably get away with something like:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;sup&gt;Image found from "URL"&lt;/sup&gt;
</code></pre>

<p><sup>That should be less obtrusive, right?</sup></p>
