Fotosid

Fotosid is a term used to describe a system of persistent identifiers assigned to digital photographs to enable stable referencing across platforms, collections, and licensing contexts. The concept emphasizes decoupling the image's identity from its storage location, filename, or owner, so that citations and licenses remain valid even as files move or are reformatted.

A fotosid typically takes the form of a globally unique identifier that can be resolved through a web service to obtain metadata and rights information. In practice, fotosids are embedded in metadata fields, stored in sidecar files, or registered in a central registry that issues and maintains the identifiers. The identifier is designed to outlive any single hosting environment.

Implementation often intersects with established digital asset management practices and metadata standards. Some adopters mint DOIs (digital object identifiers) or ARKs (Archival Resource Keys) for images, while others rely on UUIDs combined with resolvers. The IIIF framework and similar image-collection standards also support stable identifiers within manifests, enabling precise referencing.

Benefits include improved attribution, licensing efficiency, and resilience to link rot. Challenges include governance over who may mint fotosids, long-term persistence of the resolver services, versioning of assets, and privacy or rights-management concerns when images are updated or republished.

See also: DOI, IIIF, ARK, DOI for images, XMP metadata, digital asset management.