Subject: RE: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 11:05:50 -0500

I don't see how that's even a remote possibility, and even so it has nothing
to do with IPR, so maybe a different list/thread would be appropriate.

-----Original Message-----
From: todd glassey [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 11:02 AM
To: Contreras, Jorge; Scott Bradner; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

Jorge - what do you think a class-action suit to force compliance under SOX
would do to the IETF?

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
To: "Scott Bradner" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 6:41 AM
Subject: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

All,

Sorry, but I've been on vacation and unable to chime in until today.

Below is my take (from a legal perspective) on the copyright issues
and why RFC 3667 reads the way it does:

1.  OWNERSHIP.  There is no "transfer" of copyright occurring here.  The
Contributor(s) of IETF documents retain ownership (whether personally
or through their employers).

2.  LICENSE.  Under Section 3.3 of RFC 3667, the Contributors grant a
license
to all IETF participants to reproduce, modify, etc. the IETF
documents within the IETF Standards Process.  This license is non-exclusive,
meaning that they are free to grant anyone else a license as well
(so long as it does not limit the rights granted to IETF participants).
This point is explained in Section 7.1.

3.  NO SUBLICENSE.  The license granted by the Contributor is ONLY for use
of the contribution within the IETF Standards Process.  The IETF does NOT
have the right to grant "sublicenses" or otherwise to authorize others
(including other authors, publishers or standards bodies) to excerpt,
reproduce
or otherwise use contributions to the IETF except in very specific, limited
cases, such as in MIB's (which are expressly described in Section 5.6).
In all other cases, these rights must be granted by
the Contributors (or their employers, or whoever owns the copyright).
This point is also explained in Sec. 7.3.

4.  COPYRIGHT NOTICE.  A lot of confusion has been caused by the ISOC
copyright notice
required under Section 5.4 of RFC 3667.  That notice reads as follows:

      "Copyright (C) The Internet Society (year).  This document is
      subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP
      78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their
      rights."

***ISOC's copyright in a document contributed by someone else is "thin",
though it does exist.  The rights that ISOC has by virtue of ownership
(and not through the license granted by the Contributor) only relate to the
formatting of the document in the RFC style, the text provided by IETF
(such as the disclaimers, notices and other required text), the RFC/BP
numbering and the collection of the entire series of documents together.***

ISOC/IETF are NOT claiming ownership of the work itself -- that's why the
last sentence says "except as set forth therein, the authors retain all
their rights".  As noted above, the Contributors retain ownership and are
free to do whatever they want with the text.

Additional copyright notices are not permitted, but remember that copyright
notices are NOT required by US law or the law of any other country of which
I am aware.  They are for notification purposes only, and only become
important
when a copyright suit is being brought.  For that reason, the choice was
made not to permit other notices to be placed on the Contributions
(just as claims of patent ownership must be made through the separate
procedure outlined in RFC 3668).

5.  MINNEAPOLIS?  I have heard from a number of sources that the IETF's
inability to grant sublicenses of I-D/RFC material to other standards
organizations, or to permit it to be published in academic or other texts,
is a problem.  I think this would be a good topic to discuss in Minneapolis,
and think that a short amendment to 3667 could fix the problem.

I do not think it would be worthwhile to spend a lot of time discussing the
copyright notice provisions, which are fairly technical and not terribly
important in the grand scheme of things, but would certainly be happy to
carry on that discussion if there's enough interest.

-- Jorge

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf
Of Scott Bradner
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 9:28 PM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: RFC 3667 and copyright asignment

> However each internet-draft contains a copyright statement claiming
> that ISOC owns the copyright for the draft with all rights reserved.

the "all rights reserved" was removed under 3667

RFC 3667 is quite clear - the ISOC (IETF) gets *non exclusive* rights to
publish & make new versions  *within the ietf stds process*

all other rights stay with the authors

the ISOC has a copyright on the specific representation that is the RFC

Scott

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---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 11:28:11 -0500

>to do with IPR, so maybe a different list/thread would be appropriate.

I think that a separate list would be a very good place for such a 
disucssion.

		--Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 08:37:53 -0800

That's part of the problem Jorge.

Todd
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
To: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>; "Scott Bradner"
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 8:05 AM
Subject: RE: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

-----Original Message-----
From: todd glassey [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 11:02 AM
To: Contreras, Jorge; Scott Bradner; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
To: "Scott Bradner" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 6:41 AM
Subject: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

All,

-- Jorge

-----Original Message-----

Scott

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 09:15:56 -0800

Steven

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 8:28 AM
Subject: Re: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

> I think that a separate list would be a very good place for such a

yeah, I bet you do. Does that mean you would support the startup of a IP
Submissions Working Group to specificially address how materials are
submitted to the IETF/IESG for publication and how the conveyance of
publishing releases happens? Cool, what should we call it ? IPR Release
Group?

> --Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

The problem Steven is that this is the IPR list. And ownership of IP Rights
and the ability to enter into a contract with the IETF such that a submitter
could convey publishing rights to the IETF is exactly what IP Rights
Management is all about. What you are worried about is that sooner or later
I will get some traction with this commentary of mine and your whole little
world will collapse.

Sorry - but those of you that made a career of sitting on Standards Boards
need to get that at some point you will be held accountable for those
standards. Also - If Enron could happen and that the people that put forth
its fraud are just everyday people, what makes this arrogant IETF think it
doesn't have crooks inside it as well.

The facts speak for themselves - there is no method of pushing a
competitive  standard to completion to one that already existed without
the help of those in power... No release process, no document retirement
process, no set of procedural models for forcing retirements of documents,
and a Copyright Statement that is a one-way trip into print. Those facts
are not deniable - nor is the damage that can be done based on
wrongdoing inside the IETF management.

Steven - I'll make a point of not reiterating this commentary again (this
pass at least)  but the managerial ice that you and  many other IETF
managers are walking on is getting thinner by the day IMHO.

Todd Glassey

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 17:35:40 -0500

>publishing releases happens? Cool, what should we call it ? IPR Release

You're taking my comment out of context.  You posted a query about
the chances of the IETF being the target of a class-action suit
under the Sarbanes-Oxley law.  Jorge's reply, quoted above, was
that it wasn't even a remote possibility in his opinion, wasn't
relevant to IPR, and was perhaps better suited to a new mailing
list.  That was the comment I was agreeing with.  I see nothing in
his comment or mine that has anything to do with a new working
group.

However -- the current charter for the IPR working group does call
on the working group to "identify issues with current IPR practice
that need to be addressed".  You've raised an issue.  In fact,
you've raised it repeatedly on this list, even when it was irrelevant
to the threads being discussed.  You've received virtually no
support.  But you're welcome to proceed, according to normal working
group procedure.

Write a I-D outlining the problem as you see it.  As is normal
custom in the IETF, this document will *not* be a working group
draft initially (i.e., its name should be draft-glassey-* or
draft-glassey-ipr-*).  This would be aimed at Informational status
if it were eventually published as an RFC.  The document should
explain what the problem is, what the effects would be if not fixed,
and what characteristics an eventual solution should have.  Given
that some of your past emails on this topic would require turning
the IETF into a formal membership organization, you should discuss
that, too.  It would be a fundamental change in the IETF; we're
not going to make such a change without a really good reason.
Again, this document should not attempt to propose solutions to
that problem.

Given that your past assertions about the law have met with --
let's say "skepticism" -- from other members of this list, including
some who are lawyers, I strongly suggest that you find an attorney
to co-author the document.  For obvious reasons, all documents that
come out of this working group require legal scrutiny.

Once such a document exists, I'll open discussion on this mailing
list about whether or not people think it should be a working group
document.  People may say "no" because they don't think there's
really a problem, or because they don't think that your document
is a good one on the topic.  If there is a consensus to proceed,
someone will be invited by me to prepare a revised document based
on mailing list comments; this will be draft-ietf-ipr-*-00.txt.
The AD and I will discuss who would make a good document editor.
Because of this last point -- that this document would be intended
for working group adoption, but there are no guarantees that the
original author will become the document editor -- I must insist
that any such document contain the boilerplate that explicitly
gives the IETF the right to create derivative works.  That is, the
boilerplate options in 5.2(a) and 5.2(b) of 3667 MUST NOT appear.
Note that this requirement is explicitly stated in Section 7.3 of
3667.

If the working group doesn't accept your document, you're welcome
to seek publication as an individual submission RFC.  But that
would be between you and the RFC Editor.

Your remaining option would be to try to create a new working group.  
While I have no idea if the IESG would entertain such a notion -- I'm 
no longer an Area Director, and haven't discussed the question with 
anyone on the IESG -- please see Section 2.4 of RFC 2418.  Among other 
things, that section explicitly gives ADs the right to require an I-D, 
an active mailing list, and/or a draft charter before authorizing a 
BoF, let alone a working group.  Given the history of this topic within 
this working group, I don't think I'm going out on a limb by predicting 
that all three of these would be required in this case.

If you do not wish to write an I-D on the topic, and no one else does, 
I must ask you to stop posting about it.  The discussion is repetitive, 
generally off-topic, unproductive, and almost entirely unsupported by 
anyone else in the group.  In the interests of keeping the volume of 
postings within reason, I *will* declare it out of scope.

If these options are not to your liking -- I'm sorry, but this is the 
procedure within the IETF.  If you don't like it, you're welcome to 
find another standards body to which you can submit your technology, or 
simply publish your ideas on your own web site and see if you can get 
people to adopt it as de facto standards.

The rest of your note consists of insinuations of improper motives
and criminal intent by myself and the IETF leadership.  I won't
bother replying to it, save to note that it goes without saying
that I will not accept any documents that contain any such text,
nor (I'm sure) will the RFC Editor.