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I noticed that ID3 has a list of types of images that can be embedded in an audio file:

The TYPE must be one of the following: OTHER, ICON, OTHER_ICON, FRONT_COVER, BACK_COVER, LEAFLET, MEDIA, LEAD_ARTIST, ARTIST, CONDUCTOR, BAND, COMPOSER, LYRICIST, RECORDING_LOCATION, DURING_RECORDING, DURING_PERFORMANCE, VIDEO, BRIGHT_COLORED_FISH, ILLUSTRATION, BAND_LOGO, PUBLISHER_LOGO.

That’s from the help screen of eyeD3, but many web pages mention it without reference to ID3

Most of them have a use I can understand.  But why "BRIGHT_COLORED_FISH"?  In the cited web search, I found several mentions, including two Reddit posts asking the same question, but no answer.  Adding "why" to the search got the same results.

I couldn’t find an appropriate tag.

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2 Answers 2

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Upon following your search link, I found that the BRIGHT_COLORED_FISH image type is also shared with the Ogg Vorbis format. This gives an immediate answer!

The Ogg container format and Vorbis codec are maintained by the Xiph.org foundation, which takes its name from Xiphophorus hellerii, the Swordtail fish.

The real fish looks something like this:

Xiphophorus hellerii

(image source)

Its depiction in the logo of Xiph.org is this:

Xiph.org logo

So I think the answer is, quite literally, a brightly-colored fish.

Edit, in response to PiedPiper's comments:

Admittedly, my explanation is a long shot. To be fair, I did call it an "immediate answer", not a thoroughly-researched plausible one.

But, the ID3 tag is defined by a standard without a standards body. The id3.org website has been down for years. Even when it was up, it apparently didn't explain the meaning of "a bright coloured fish", or much else for that matter.

The surviving specification on github doesn't explain.

It's almost certainly an inside joke by the author. Maybe they were a fan of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and wanted a picture type just for that.

Trout Mask Replica Album Artwork

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    Where in the ogg/vorbis documentation is this found? Commented Jan 5, 2024 at 20:59
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    All of those are just references to the existing ID3 format, that's not evidence that the Xiph people had any influence on that format. Commented Jan 5, 2024 at 22:04
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    Fast and Bulbous! Commented Jan 5, 2024 at 22:46
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    One of the web pages I looked at claimed (or implied) that this was in ID3 before Xiph or Ogg existed. So, it could be that Xiph picked that logo because it was in the spec. Or it was added to the spec at Xiph's request (or to accomodzte Xiph putting it in files in spite of the spec). I was unable to find an actual specification. One link that claimed to be wasn't. Commented Jan 6, 2024 at 0:24
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    Agreed, it's an inside joke, but who did it?Xiph has existed since about 1994, the ogg vorbis format since about 2000. The fish reference has been in the ID3 spec since at least 1998 (it's in id3v2-00 dated March 1998). The most likely culprit for putting it in is Chris Montgomery, the founder of Xiph who had been working on multimedia formats since about 1993. Commented Jan 6, 2024 at 9:41
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It is a red herring:

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question.

Its presence in this list is a bit of self-referential humour - "bright coloured fish" is a playful synonym for "red herring", and by including it the author is distracting the reader from the other more important items.

While there's no direct evidence that this was the spec creator's intent, one can find various other instances of writers making playful references to red herrings in this way - see this opinion piece about camera lenses:

Brightly coloured fish

“It’s a complete red herring,” he says of the 4k lens for 4k shooting debate.

Or page 49 of Your Sinclair issue 72, December 1991:

Simon's next query was about the toothpaste in Treasure Island Dizzy. I'm afraid, Simon, it is in fact scarlet fish flavour, and so a red herring (Geddit?)

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