Versioning | Audiovisueel AI Statement

Now: version 0.9, still a draft. While the version number starts with a zero, the format may still break. Anyone working with it today should expect a field to disappear or be renamed. Statements stay readable, but automated integrations can fall over.

The promise from 1.0

Adding is allowed. Removing is not.

From version 1.0 one rule applies, and it is binding.

01 / ADD

New fields may appear

A higher version can add fields. A file written today stays valid.

02 / KEEP

Existing fields stay

No field is removed, renamed or redefined. What 1.0 meant, 1.7 still means.

03 / IGNORE

Readers skip what they don't know

Anyone building a reader ignores unknown fields rather than failing. One reader then handles every later version.

Why this works. The rule comes from standards that have lasted decades, such as the IPTC vocabularies and schema.org. They grow by addition, never by replacement. It is dull, and that is the point.

Your own fields

Extend without forking.

Is a fund, distributor or insurer missing something? No separate variant of the format is needed.

Every statement carries an extensions object. An organisation hangs its own fields under a reverse domain key. That key is theirs; the rest of the file stays the standard's.

extensions0.9

"extensions": {
  "nl.filmfonds.v1": { "dossiernummer": "2026-114" },
  "com.example-distributor.v2": { "deliverySpec": "…" }
}

The same is allowed per stage. A reader that does not know the key skips it.

Validation

Every file can be checked by machine.

Each version has a published JSON schema at a fixed address. Every statement points to it, so a recipient can always verify a file, ten years from now and even if this site is gone.

VersionSchema

0.9/schema/0.9.json

Towards 1.0

Freeze it only once it is tested.

Version 1.0 does not arrive on a date but on a condition: when a number of real productions have completed the form and it is clear which questions do not work in practice. Until then every change is free. After that it costs ten years.

0.7First draft

Twelve stages, four answers, IPTC mapping.

0.8Animation and media kinds

A thirteenth stage. Coverage made stage-appropriate instead of image and sound everywhere.

0.9Extensible

Its own block for AI material, the AI agent as a separate option, extensions, and a published schema.

Questions about a change?

Say so before 1.0 lands.

Back to the format

What keeps working,and what may still change.