# Outreach Letter: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

**Date:** 22 November 2025
**To:** World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
**From:** Palimpsest Stewardship Council
**Subject:** Standards for Attribution Metadata and Synthetic Content in the Semantic Web

---

Dear W3C,

We write to you with profound appreciation for the World Wide Web Consortium's role in developing the technical standards that make the web function as a global, interoperable platform. From HTML and CSS to XML, RDF, and the Semantic Web, W3C's consensus-driven standards development has enabled the web to serve billions of users whilst remaining open and accessible.

## The Palimpsest License: Semantic Attribution for Creative Works

The **Palimpsest License** addresses a critical gap in web standards: how to preserve attribution, cultural context, and creator consent as artificial intelligence systems generate, transform, and republish creative content at scale. This directly concerns W3C's work on:

- **Semantic Web technologies** (RDF, JSON-LD, schema.org)
- **Web Annotation standards**
- **Provenance and versioning** (PROV-O)
- **Verifiable Credentials** and trust
- **Accessibility standards** (WCAG)

## Technical Challenges Requiring Standardisation

### 1. Attribution Metadata for AI-Generated Content
Current web standards lack mechanisms for:
- **Disclosing training data sources** in AI-generated content
- **Preserving attribution chains** through multiple AI transformations
- **Signalling creator consent** for AI training (analogous to robots.txt for crawling)
- **Cultural context preservation** in content derivatives

### 2. Semantic Lineage in Synthetic Media
As generative AI produces text, images, audio, and video, web standards should enable:
- **Machine-readable provenance** – RDF graphs representing content derivation
- **Synthetic lineage tags** – Embedded metadata indicating training sources
- **Quantum-proof attribution** – Future-resistant cryptographic + semantic attribution
- **Consent verification** – Mechanisms to validate training data permissions

### 3. Cultural Context as Structured Data
Existing schema.org vocabularies for creative works (Article, CreativeWork, etc.) should extend to:
- **Emotional lineage** – Structured data for symbolic meaning, cultural context, narrative intent
- **Community attribution** – Support for collective authorship (DAOs, indigenous councils, cooperatives)
- **Trauma-sensitive metadata** – Handling sensitive cultural heritage and narrative works
- **Multilingual context** – Preserving meaning across translations and cultural boundaries

### 4. Accessibility and Plain Language
WCAG standards ensure technical accessibility; Palimpsest extends this to:
- **Cultural accessibility** – Preserving meaning for diverse audiences
- **Attribution accessibility** – Ensuring credit mechanisms work across assistive technologies
- **Plain language metadata** – Human-readable summaries alongside machine-readable schemas

## How Palimpsest Leverages Existing W3C Standards

Palimpsest builds on established W3C technologies:

### JSON-LD for Licensing Metadata
```json
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org/",
  "@type": "CreativeWork",
  "name": "Example Narrative Work",
  "license": "https://palimpsest.license/v0.4/",
  "emotionalLineage": {
    "@type": "PropertyValue",
    "name": "Cultural Context",
    "value": "Diaspora narrative addressing collective trauma"
  },
  "aiTrainingConsent": {
    "@type": "Permission",
    "grantee": "NonInterpretiveAI",
    "consentStatus": "ExplicitConsentRequired"
  },
  "syntheticLineage": {
    "@type": "DigitalDocument",
    "encodingFormat": "application/ld+json",
    "about": "Training data attribution"
  }
}
```

### RDFa for In-Document Metadata
```html
<article vocab="https://schema.org/" typeof="CreativeWork">
  <h1 property="name">Example Work</h1>
  <p property="emotionalLineage">
    This work addresses themes of displacement...
  </p>
  <meta property="license" content="https://palimpsest.license/v0.4/" />
  <meta property="aiTrainingConsent" content="ExplicitConsentRequired" />
</article>
```

### PROV-O for Content Provenance
Palimpsest's synthetic lineage tags align with PROV-O patterns for tracking derivation, attribution, and transformation chains.

### Verifiable Credentials for Consent
W3C's VC framework could support cryptographically verifiable AI training consent, enabling:
- Creator-signed permissions
- Consent verification by AI systems
- Revocation mechanisms
- Audit trails for compliance

## Proposed Collaboration Opportunities

We would welcome W3C's perspective and potential collaboration in the following areas:

### 1. Standards Development
Proposing new or extended specifications for:

**Community Group:** AI Attribution and Creative Rights
- Attribution metadata vocabularies (extending schema.org)
- Consent signalling mechanisms for AI training
- Synthetic content provenance standards
- Cultural context structured data

**Potential Specifications:**
- **AI Training Consent Protocol** – Standard mechanisms for signalling permissions
- **Synthetic Lineage Ontology** – RDF vocabularies for AI-generated content attribution
- **Cultural Context Metadata** – Extending CreativeWork with emotional lineage fields
- **Quantum-Resistant Attribution** – Future-proof cryptographic + semantic methods

### 2. Integration with Existing Standards
Collaborating on:
- **Schema.org extensions** for creative work cultural context
- **PROV-O patterns** for AI content derivation
- **Verifiable Credentials** for training consent
- **Web Annotation** for attribution overlay on AI-generated content
- **WCAG integration** ensuring attribution is accessible

### 3. Reference Implementations
Developing:
- JavaScript libraries for Palimpsest metadata extraction
- Browser extensions demonstrating attribution verification
- Content management system plugins (WordPress, Drupal, etc.)
- AI framework integrations (TensorFlow, PyTorch metadata hooks)

### 4. Best Practices Documentation
Creating W3C Notes on:
- Implementing attribution metadata for creative works
- AI training consent mechanisms
- Cultural heritage digitisation and web standards
- Multilingual semantic metadata

### 5. Outreach and Education
Collaborating on:
- Workshops at TPAC (Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee)
- Web standards curriculum for creators and cultural institutions
- Developer guidance for implementing attribution metadata
- Policy engagement with governments and cultural organisations

## Invitation to Dialogue

We would be honoured to present the Palimpsest framework to relevant W3C groups and explore how our technical requirements might inform standards development. Potential venues include:

- **Community Groups** – Publishing, Credentials, Solid, Decentralized Identifier
- **Working Groups** – Verifiable Credentials, Dataset Exchange, Web of Things
- **Interest Groups** – Privacy, Web and Networks
- **TPAC Sessions** – Presenting technical challenges and proposed solutions

Would you be available for an initial conversation? We are eager to engage with W3C's standards development process and contribute technical specifications, use cases, and implementation experience.

## Contact Information

**Palimpsest Stewardship Council**
Email: [contact information to be provided]
Repository: https://github.com/[repository-path]
Documentation: [documentation URL]
Technical Specifications: [specs URL]

Thank you for your consideration. The World Wide Web Consortium has demonstrated that open, consensus-driven standards can enable global interoperability whilst respecting diverse needs. We aspire to extend those principles to ensuring creative works retain meaningful attribution and cultural context as AI transforms the web.

With deep respect for W3C's technical leadership,

**The Palimpsest Stewardship Council**

---

## Appendices Available Upon Request

- Full text of Palimpsest License v0.4 (English and Dutch)
- Technical specifications: JSON-LD schemas, RDFa patterns, PROV-O alignments
- Reference implementation: JavaScript attribution library
- Use cases: AI training consent, cultural heritage, synthetic content
- Proposed schema.org vocabulary extensions
