Embedded Attribution

An image on your site is downloaded and shared. The photographer's name and the licence stay with it.

Embedded Attribution writes the maker, the rights, the source, an identifier and a licence link into every image style derivative Drupal makes: the versions your visitors actually see and save. Where the original file already says who made it, that wins. Where it says nothing, the module fills the gaps from fields you choose, such as a Photographer field or an Attribution field.

In development: no release yet

The test suite runs on Drupal 11.3 and 11.4, with GD and with ImageMagick, and exiftool validates every file the module writes. It has not run on a production site yet. Try it on a test or staging site, and report what you find in the issue queue.

What goes into the file

Item XMP IPTC EXIF Maker dc:creator By-line Artist Rights dc:rights Copyright Notice Copyright Source dc:source Identifier dc:identifier Link xmpRights:WebStatement

JPEG derivatives get XMP, IPTC and EXIF. WebP and AVIF derivatives get XMP and EXIF.

Features

• The original wins. Fields only fill what the file does not say.
• You choose the fields, per media type or content type: text fields and Attribution fields.
• Only what an anonymous visitor may see. Fields of unpublished content never go into a file.
• JPEG, WebP and AVIF derivatives, including Drupal 11's own AVIF image styles.
• Changes reach the files. Saving a changed item deletes its derivatives, and Drupal makes them again with the new values. After you change the mapping, one button refreshes all derivatives.
• See it on the edit form: what would be written now, and what each existing derivative carries, read from the file.
• Works with C2PA Sign. The attribution is written before C2PA Sign signs the derivative, so it is inside the signature. Tested with C2PA Sign 1.4.11.
• No network. The module sends nothing anywhere.

What it does not do

• It never changes the original file.
• Originals must be JPEG. PNG and GIF originals are left alone.
• Only image style derivatives. Images pasted into body text and links to the original file are not covered.
• Images served by an external image bank or IIIF server never pass through Drupal's image styles.
• Only the default translation counts.
• No PDF, video or audio.

Requirements

Drupal 11.3 or later, PHP 8.3 or later. Media and Attribution are optional.

Installation

composer require drupal/embedded_attribution:1.0.x-dev

Enable the module, go to Configuration → Media → Embedded Attribution, and choose for each media type or content type which field supplies which item.