Subject: Copyright Issues and RFC 3667

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 09:41:02 -0500

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: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 08:02:11 -0800

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,

2.  LICENSE.  Under Section 3.3 of RFC 3667, the Contributors grant a
license

(including other authors, publishers or standards bodies) to excerpt,
reproduce

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:

I am aware.  They are for notification purposes only, and only become
important

-- Jorge

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

Scott

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 08:08:43 -0800

----- 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,

1.  OWNERSHIP.  There is no "transfer" of copyright occurring here.  The
Contributor(s) of IETF documents retain ownership (whether personally
or through their employers).
-----
TSG: Here again Jorge is acknowledging that the Employers and NOT the
SUBMITTER in many instances will own trhe work. That means legally that the
individual has no right to assign squat to the IETF...
-----

----
TSG: Only the legal owner of an IP can license it to the IETF for any
purposes, and the legal owner of all submissions is what is in question now.
----

***ISOC's copyright in a document contributed by someone else is "thin",
though it does exist.
----
TSG: Not unless the rightful contributor was a part to the agreement itself.
No one has the right to submit anything that they dont hold CLEAR TITLE or a
"Release Authorization" to submit for publication to the IETF for. Otherwise
the IETF's copyright is an act of FRAUD when the IETF knowling republishes
materials it is aware it does not hold reliable releases to...
----

The rights that ISOC has by virtue of ownership

----
TSG: Actually NOT - Since the IETF cannot prove in any of the instances of
submissions who actually owned the materials and since we all know that most
contributors are using a third-parties resources such that the IP most
likely belongs to them, this clearly is the IETF commiting copyright fraud.
Unless per se that the ISOC and IETF want to claim that the only thing that
they own is the TEMPLATE, at which time I would formally ask them to
document that with proper releases for all those that contributed.
----

-----
TSG: No I disagree. The IETF process to date has sought to functionally HIDE
who the actual IP Owners are and that in and of itself is done to facilitate
the republishing of the document as a part of the IETF's IP Portfolio, so
the IETF clearly benefits from the wrongful publishing of these materials.
-----

-- Jorge

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 14:24:02 -0500

>>>>> "Jorge" == Contreras, Jorge <[email-masked]> writes:
Thanks for a complete and easy to understand answer to the current
state of RFC 3667!
    Jorge> I do not think it would be worthwhile to spend a lot of
    Jorge> time discussing the copyright notice provisions, which are
    Jorge> fairly technical and not terribly important in the grand
    Jorge> scheme of things, but would certainly be happy to carry on
    Jorge> that discussion if there's enough interest.

Nor do I.  I was just trying to understand what was going on.

--Sam