A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for Federated Content

A content provider may join or leave a federation at any time and may be part of more than one federation at the same time. Content providers may also cease as organizations altogether, freeing their domain names for use by others. In addition, content identifiers are spread throughout the members of a federation. These identifiers are stored on various media, sometimes for long durations before being used. Therefore, although they work well in situations without a strong content naming authority, URLs are insufficient as content identifiers within a federation because they cannot be uniquely and permanently tied to a specific content resource.