We demonstrate that the phonon frequencies that are reported in the literature for indium nitride (InN), films are all consistently correlated to the strain state of the material. Raman spectroscopy measurements and X-ray investigations of large size InN quantum dots grown on c-plane GaN are combined, which show these frequencies to experience a blue shift with increasing compression. The InN dots are weakly strained, most probably due to the formation of dislocations at the InN/GaN interface. We report the observation of a broad absorption in the 1.25 eV region that is typical of thin InN films. Such a feature we attribute to light absorption at the energy of the fundamental direct band gap of InN, while we attribute the low energy 650-800 meV photoluminescence to an extrinsic recombination process analogous to the processes that produce the blue band in AlN and the yellow band in GaN. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.