CIP.MD FIELD SPEC

§1Operator identity

The operator identity section establishes who is making the declaration, where it applies, and when it was issued. Every cip.md file must begin with this section.

§2Certification

The certification section declares the operator's CIP certification status. In certified mode, these fields are populated from the Rights Registry. In preview mode, they contain placeholder values.

§3Rights bundle

The rights bundle declares which rights subsist in the content covered by this declaration. Each right uses the value vocabulary Subsisting or Not-Applicable.

§4Input permissions

Input permissions control how the declared content may be used by AI systems and other automated processes.

§5NILP declarations

The eight-field NILP specification from v3.6, covering Name, Image, Likeness, and Persona rights in AI contexts.

§6Transformation matrix

Controls what kinds of transformation AI systems may perform on the declared content.

§7AI generation

The v3.24 AI Generation field set. Declares whether the content covered by this cip.md was itself AI-generated, and if so, provides the provenance chain. All fields in this section are conditional on CIP-AI-Generated: true.

§8Output provenance integration

The v3.17 Output-Provenance integration fields. These connect the cip.md declaration to an operator's Output-Provenance Block (OPB) endpoint for downstream verification.

§9Provenance and CDR

Links the cip.md declaration to Core Data Records and the Rights Registry for verification.

§10Field set — Third-party marks (v3.33)

This field declares third-party trademarks, brand identifiers, or registered marks present in the operator's content but owned by parties other than the operator. Use cases include product placements in film and television, branded backgrounds in user-generated content, in-game advertising, and client brand assets in agency-produced content.

CIP-Third-Party-Marks [mode: dual]

Format: {mark-name}:{rights-holder}:{permission-status} — multi-entry, comma-separated.

Mark name

Free-text identifier for the third-party mark (e.g. Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple).

Rights holder

Legal entity that owns the mark (e.g. The Coca-Cola Company, Apple Inc., Nike Inc.).

Permission status

Closed vocabulary declaring the basis on which the mark appears. Four values:

• licensed — the operator holds a licence or formal permission from the rights holder to include the mark.
• fair-use — the operator asserts fair use, nominative fair use, or comparative advertising grounds for inclusion.
• incidental — the mark appears incidentally in the content (e.g. a branded item visible in a street scene).
• unauthorised — the mark is present without permission or legal basis. Declaration does not cure the absence of rights.

Worked example

Verification caveat

Per-jurisdiction trademark and incidental-inclusion analysis varies materially. UK CDPA 1988 §31 provides an incidental inclusion exception; the US treats incidental use through First Amendment and nominative-fair-use analysis. The framework vocabulary is declaration shorthand, not a substantive legal determination.

Relationship to CIP-IP-Registration

CIP-IP-Registration (v3.29) declares marks the operator themselves owns. CIP-Third-Party-Marks declares marks owned by other parties. Both fields can appear in the same cip.md — they are complementary, not mutually exclusive.

§11Field set — Source material declaration (v3.34)

This field declares third-party copyrighted material (other than trademarks) present in the operator's content. Use cases include quotations and excerpts in journalism, audio samples in music production, film and television clips in documentaries, archival footage, stock photography, library music, performances, datasets, and code components.

CIP-Source-Material [mode: dual]

Format: {source-description}:{rights-holder}:{permission-status} — multi-entry, comma-separated.

Source description

Free-text identifier, specific enough to identify if challenged (e.g. Reuters-archive-clip-20230315, BFI-archive-WWII-footage-1944, Beatles-Strawberry-Fields-2s-clip).

Rights holder

Legal entity that owns the material. For complex rights splits, use semicolons to separate parties (e.g. Sony Music; Sony Music Publishing).

Permission status

Closed vocabulary declaring the basis on which the material appears. Seven values — extends the v3.33 vocabulary with three new statuses:

• licensed — the operator holds a licence or formal permission from the rights holder.
• fair-use — the operator asserts fair dealing (UK), fair use (US), or equivalent exception grounds.
• incidental — the material appears incidentally in the content.
• public-domain— the work is in the public domain in the operator's jurisdiction. UK: life + 70 years (CDPA 1988); US: per 17 U.S.C. §§302–305; Crown Copyright variations apply to government works.
• creative-commons— the material is used under a Creative Commons licence variant. The operator's notes should carry the specific variant: CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, CC-BY-NC-SA, or CC-BY-NC-ND.
• cleared-other — cleared through arrangements that do not fit the other categories. Examples: museum-loan terms, foundation-licensed material, festival-only documentary licences, research-use-only datasets.
• unauthorised — the material is present without permission or legal basis. Declaration does not cure the absence of rights.

Worked example

Relationship to CIP-Third-Party-Marks

CIP-Third-Party-Marks (v3.33) handles trademarks and brand identifiers. CIP-Source-Material handles copyrighted material — quotations, samples, footage, datasets, code. Both fields can appear in the same cip.md and are complementary, not mutually exclusive.

For the full architectural framing of this field set, see the Source Material Declaration Architecture page.

§12Field set — Trade dress (v3.35)

This field declares trade dress engagement — the overall visual presentation of a product, packaging, or retail environment that identifies the source. It handles both operator-owned and third-party trade dress. The field is configuration-anchored rather than registration-anchored, because most US trade dress is unregistered Lanham Act §43(a) protection.

CIP-Trade-Dress [mode: dual]

Format: {trade-dress-description}:{rights-holder}:{permission-status} — multi-entry, comma-separated.

Trade-dress description

Free-text identifier describing the visual configuration (e.g. Coca-Cola-contour-bottle-silhouette, Tiffany-blue-box-packaging, Apple-Store-interior-glass-cube).

Rights holder

Legal entity that owns the trade dress.

Permission status

Uses the same 7-value closed vocabulary established in v3.34: licensed, fair-use, incidental, public-domain, creative-commons, cleared-other, unauthorised.

Worked example

Verification caveat

US trade-dress doctrine was established through Two Pesos v. Taco Cabana (1992), Wal-Mart v. Samara Brothers (2000), and TrafFix v. Marketing Displays (2001). The UK applies passing-off and registered designs law. The EU applies Community Designs Regulation 6/2002. Per-jurisdiction analysis is essential.

Three-field brand disambiguation

With v3.35, three complementary fields now cover the full brand-rights landscape in a cip.md declaration:

CIP-IP-Registration (v3.29)

Registration-anchored. Declares marks the operator themselves owns.

CIP-Third-Party-Marks (v3.33)

Mark-name-anchored. Declares third-party trademarks and brand identifiers.

CIP-Trade-Dress (v3.35)

Configuration-anchored. Declares registered and unregistered trade dress — visual configurations, packaging, and retail environments.

§13Versioning policy

The cip.md specification follows semantic versioning. The current specification is v1.0. The versioning policy commits to:

• v1.x stability: No field removals or meaning changes within v1.x releases. New fields may be added. Existing fields remain backward-compatible.
• v2.0 overlap: When v2.0 is eventually published, a 12-month overlap period will apply during which both v1.x and v2.0 parsers should be maintained.
• Deprecation: Deprecated fields are marked in the specification and continue to be accepted by parsers for at least two minor versions.

§14Field-introduction history