#1282 Re: Additional Copyright notices in IETF documents

"Lawrence Rosen" <lrosenrosenlaw.com> writes:

> I'm surprised that this has become an issue.
>
> Copyright law allows the author of a collective or
derivative work to place
> only one copyright notice--in our case IETF's own
copyright notice--on the
> work, which neither mentions nor overrides the
copyrights on the individual
> contributions to the work.

I'm not sure I follow here.  Are you saying that more than
one
copyright notice is not allowed by copyright law on
collective works?

> Separate from this legal copyright notice issue,
however, is the good
> practice of acknowledging the contributors to an IETF
specification. You can
> do that either by copying those contributors'
copyright notices, or merely
> by saying "thanks to the following
people/companies" somewhere in the
> document.

Right, exactly, and it is including those copyright notices
that I
wish the IETF would permit me to do.

The reason the copyright statement is useful is that if
someone takes
stuff from the RFC (code or text) and use it against my
license, the
chances of winning a case for such infringement are higher
if there is
an explicit copyright notice is present.

Another reason is that it is bad style, and may even be
against some
licenses, to remove third-party copyright notices from
source code
that is included in an RFC.  And including source code in
RFCs can in
several cases be helpful, so I think we should encourage
that.

Regards,
Simon

> /Larry
>
> Lawrence Rosen
> Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm
(www.rosenlaw.com)
> Stanford University, Lecturer in Law
> 3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
> 707-485-1242  *  fax: 707-485-1243
> Author of "Open Source Licensing: Software
Freedom and 
>                 Intellectual Property Law"
(Prentice Hall 2004)
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:jasextundo.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 7:18 AM
>> To: Harald Alvestrand
>> Cc: ipr-wgietf.org
>> Subject: Re: #1282 Re: Additional Copyright notices
in IETF documents
>> 
>> Harald Alvestrand <haraldalvestrand.no> writes:
>> 
>> > Simon,
>> >
>> > I have entered the issue of multiple copyright
statements into the
>> > tracker as issue #1282.
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> > Jorge identifies the issue of identifying
which parts are under which
>> > copyright; as we have discussed before, this
often becomes
>> > next-to-impossible when there are multiple
contributors to a document.
>> 
>> I disagree.  For the case that prompted this draft,
there are two
>> copyrights.  And, yes, the draft has many
contributors; they either
>> assigned the copyright to the FSF or the
contribution was not legally
>> significant.  One is for the code included in the
document.  It is
>> easy to identify where the code ends and where it
starts.  The other
>> is for specific text sections that I wrote, and the
copying condition
>> is explicit about which sections are covered by
that copyright.
>> 
>> So I don't think it is next-to-impossible to do
this.  In some
>> situations (one author, one copyright holder), it
is trivial to do.
>> 
>> Note that I don't challenge that there may be
conceivable scenarios
>> where it is next-to-impossible to implement this,
but I don't see that
>> as conflicting with the goal of my draft, and thus
not relevant.  In
>> those cases, you simply will have to avoid adding
extra copyrights.  I
>> expect that approach to continue to be the norm for
some time.  Few
>> current IETF authors appear to want the additional
protection that
>> goes with an explicit copyright notice.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Simon
>> 
>> >                             Harald
>> >
>> > Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> >
>> >>Hi.  The draft below argues for permitting
multiple copyrights in IETF
>> >>documents.  I'd like to raise this as an
issue within this WG, because
>> >>RFC 3978 section 5.4 was a major discussion
item in the IESG before
>> >>approving RFC 3548bis, and one of the
suggested ways to proceed was to
>> >>produce a document that alter's RFC 3978.
>> >>
>> >>In particular, I'd appreciate Jorge's
input on whether this approach
>> >>would be impossible to adopt for the IETF
for some legal reason.
>> >>Given how often documents have multiple
copyrights, I'd be surprised
>> >>if there are any legal issue that can't be
resolved without altering
>> >>the intent of this document.
>> >>
>> >>In general, is there interest in adopting
this document in the WG?
>> >>
>> >>Thanks,
>> >>Simon
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>>	Title		: RFC 3978 Update Regarding
Additional Copyright
> Notices
>> >>>	Filename	:
draft-josefsson-ipr-notices-00.txt
>> >>>
>> >>>RFC 3978 disallow additional copyright
notices in IETF Documents, but
>> >>>the running code within the IETF appear
to be to ignore that rule and
>> >>>publish documents with additional
copyright notices.  There are
>> >>>arguments for permitting additional
copyright notices in IETF
>> >>>documents, and some are given in this
document.  This document update
>> >>>the paragraph in RFC 3978 that
discusses additional copyrights, to
>> >>>relax the requirement.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
>> >>>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-
josefsson-ipr-notices-00.txt
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>>
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>> >>Ipr-wgietf.org
>> >>https:/
/www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> 
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#1282 Re: Additional Copyright notices in IETF documents

Thread: #1282 Re: Additional Copyright notices in IETF documents