Considering #1083 http://schema.org/DataDownload is technically a MediaObject, however this is mostly about images/videos. If we keep this, the definition of MediaObject should be updated. Otherwise we could take the best properties from it and attach them to DataDownload directly.

I think it would be better to make DataDownload not a subtype of MediaObject, as MediaObject name already has some connotation about 'media' files (even if its definition could change) and it is not generic enough for any Dataset.

I wonder if it would not make sense for schema.org to have a systematic separation between creative works and their 'encodings'.

For instance:

• Dataset (work) and DataDownload (encoding)
• Image (work, currently non existing) and ImageObject (encoding)
• Video (work , currently non existing) and VideoObject (encoding)
• etc.

That will make it super easy to use the encoding property of CreativeWork (or distribution for Dataset). While I am at this, it may make sense to deprecate the distribution property of Dataset and just have encoding.

In that world it would be great to have DataDownload as a subclass of the parent class for all things encoding (right now that parent class seems to be MediaObject).

So we would have 2 parent classes CreativeWork and Encoding (currently MediaObject). A sort of super simplified FRBR model.