Re: draft-ietf-ipr-rules-update-00.txt

[Simon Josefsson <jas at extundo.com>]

How the IETF should acquire the rights it need from contributors is
certainly an interesting question.  As an example, other organizations
typically require a written paper contract.  For example, that is what
the FSF require if you want to contribute code to many GNU projects.

However, I'm not sure the transfer of rights is an important question.

There is little motivation for me to contribute a document to the IETF
and later state that I didn't want that, or even that I challenge the
IETF's rights to that document.  The reason for contributing works to
the IETF should be to further interoperability on the Internet.  So
when I contribute something to the IETF, I want everyone everywhere to
be able to use what I have worked on, so they can implement it and use
it.  The current copying permissions causes problems in the last step,
and that is what I'm trying to point out and eventually change.  I see
few problems in transferring (non-exclusive) rights to the material
that I submit.

Thanks,
Simon

todd.glassey at att.net writes:

> Simon - even if there was any commentary in the submission as to the
> transfer of title, a simple submission of any document to anyone,
> does not convey any title in the document or its content. The
> concept that anyone owns the EMail sent to them because its email is
> ludicrous.
>
> Further, to document the absurdity of the current process, if
> someone sends you a postcard in the US Mail which is what EMail is
> generally considered, is there a transfer of ownership against the
> art contained in the Postcard - the answer is NO... so why should
> there be one with the IETF's submission process as it sits today?
>
> Clearly, an email submission of anything cannot be binding - let
> alone that the sender is not authenticated nor are the rights that
> they would be conferring to the IETF. This is the WHOLE problem with
> the submission and assignment of rights process that I have been
> objecting to for several years now and which this WG management used
> to have my input terminated from the WG.
>
> And in closing I would restate that the US and its State's all have
> specific requirements for the submission of legally binding soft
> documents and these must be upheld by this organization as well
> since it is based on a US Corporation.
>
> TG.
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Simon Josefsson <jas at extundo.com>
>> Nathanael Nerode <neroden at twcny.rr.com> writes:
>> 
>> > There are other problems with rfc3978.
>> > Section 5.4:
>> >> "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."
>> >>
>> >>Additional copyright notices are not permitted in IETF Documents
>> >>except in the case
>> > ....
>> > This doesn't work for most cases under US copyright law.  The documents' 
>> > copyrights are held by their authors unless they are (a) works-for-hire of 
>> > the Internet Society or (b) the authors have signed paper documents 
>> > transferring copyright.  The authors have the right to have their copyright 
>> > notices present, and I don't think it's waiveable.
>> 
>> For what its worth, when I wanted to put "Copyright (C) Simon
>> Josefsson" into RFC 4027, it wasn't allowed.  After some discussions,
>> I was entitled to add the following:
>> 
>> A.  Disclaimer and License
>> 
>>    Regarding this entire document or any portion of it, the author makes
>>    no guarantees and is not responsible for any damage resulting from
>>    its use.  The author grants irrevocable permission to anyone to use,
>>    modify, and distribute it in any way that does not diminish the
>>    rights of anyone else to use, modify, and distribute it, provided
>>    that redistributed derivative works do not contain misleading author
>>    or version information.  Derivative works need not be licensed under
>>    similar terms.
>> 
>> Since I haven't signed any copyright transfer papers, nor is this
>> work-for-hire for the ISOC, I believe I still own the copyright for
>> the text that I wrote in that document.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Simon
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ipr-wg mailing list
>> Ipr-wg at ietf.org
>> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

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