Delete on the raw property value sets a nullable property to null and results in an error for non-nullable properties. Delete on a stream property sets it to "empty", resulting in 204 No Content. This is in sync with the behavior for GET StructuralProperty/$value if the structural property is null Delete on the media resource deletes the media resource. It could also implicitly delete the media entity. AtomPub seems to allow both, see http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023#section-9.4: 9.4. Deleting Resources with DELETE To delete a Member Resource, a client sends a DELETE request to its Member URI, as specified in [RFC2616] . The deletion of a Media Link Entry SHOULD result in the deletion of the corresponding Media Resource. Member Resource == media resource Member URI == read/edit-media link Media Link Entry == media entity