Subject: RE: ISSUE? What does the copyright claim in I-D/RFCs mean?

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 18:48:49 -0500

Simon -- the IETF copyright covers slightly more
than the boilerplate.  It also covers the RFC numbering
series, as well as the "collective" work formed by
the individual contributions by many individual
authors, each of whom retains his/her copyright in
the contribution.  This is explained in the commentary
in Scott Bradner's latest I-D revising 3978.  See
the following language from Sec. 6.1:

"     The copyright notice also alerts readers that the document is an
      IETF Document, and that the IETF Trust owns the copyright in the
      "collective work", as well as certain aspects of the document,
      such as its layout, the RFC numbering convention and the prefatory
      language of the document.  This legend is not, however, intended
      to imply that IETF or the IETF Trust owns the text of any
      Contribution included in an IETF Document.  Rather, ownership of
      such Contributions is retained by the author(s) or remains in the
      public domain, as applicable, subject only to the licenses granted
      to IETF and the IETF Trust under Section 3.3 above."

Please let us know if you don't think this is laid
out clearly enough.

Jorge

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 4:47 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: ISSUE? What does the copyright claim in I-D/RFCs mean?

I'd like to raise a potential issue for the tracker, given the
Mankin/Klensin thread on the IETF general list, and the following
sentence in the introduction of Joel's draft:

  This includes copyrights in IETF Internet-Drafts and RFCs.

I believe we have established that the copyright statement in I-Ds and
RFC only refer to the boiler plate.  The IPR Trust doesn't hold a
copyright on the content.

Discussing this issue in the FAQ on the IETF and RFC editor pages
would also be a good idea.  It would also be useful to explain when
the year in that copyright message has to be updated.

I believe we could open and close this issue quickly, to have
something to reference when this issue comes up later on.

Suggested proposed resolution:

  The copyright claim in I-Ds and RFCs refer to the boiler plate
  (e.g., sections "Status of this Memo" and "Intellectual Property").
  The copyright of the content remains with the authors of the text
  (which may include more than the authors specified on the title
  page).

Thanks,
Simon

"Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]> writes:

> As described by Harald, this draft is currently merely an outline.
> And even the structure may change as the working group consensus
> appears.  If I have made errors in what little content I did put in,
> please let me know on the working group list.
>
> Yours,
> Joel M. Halpern, Ed.
>
>> A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
>> directories.
>> This draft is a work item of the Intellectual Property Rights
>> Working Group of the IETF.
>>
>>         Title           : Advice to the IAOC on Rights to be Granted
>> in IETF RFCs
>>         Author(s)       : J. Halpern
>>         Filename        : draft-ietf-ipr-outbound-rights-00.txt
>>         Pages           : 7
>>         Date            : 2006-3-4
>>
>>The IASA is resposible for managing intellectual property rights on
>>behalf of the IETF.  This includes the license to copy, implement and
>>otherwise use IETF contributions, among them Internet-Drafts and
>>RFCs.  The IASA takes direction from the IETF regarding the rights to
>>be granted.  This document describes the desires of the IETF
>>regarding rights granted in IETF contributions.
>>
>>A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
>>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ipr-outbound-rights-00.txt

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---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 20:16:40 -0500

Hi Jorge,

Simon and I come at this from different directions, so whatever
he has to say and is concerned about and what follows may not be
related.  In particular, I have no issue at all with the
copyright notice being present in either RFCs or I-Ds.  However,
_I_ don't think "it" is laid out clearly enough.

Put RFCs aside for the moment because I do agree that case is
fairly clear, if only because there is a clear document series
involved and it is possible to claim some rights about the
series.    The comments to which Simon referred in his initial
posting (both Allison's and mine) were strictly about
newly-submitted Internet Drafts (or versions of Internet Drafts).

An Internet-Draft, especially an early one, is often an
individual contribution and work of authorship, no more
dependent on the work of others than an article would be that
you might write based on the general and legal knowledge you
have acquired over the years.  For them, at least, the
"collective work" aspects do not apply.  There is no RFC number.
Perhaps there is a claim of IPR in the convention
draft-something-somethingelse-NN.txt, but it would hardly be
significant and the convention itself has not changed for years.
The document structure has not changed in any significant way in
years either, certainly not in the last four months (more on
that below).  I suggest that, given the implications of "expires
in six months", it would be very hard to claim that there is an
integrated "Internet Draft series" that constitutes a
compilation and, as far as I know, we have never made that
claim.   For at least the single-author subset of I-Ds, that, I
think, leaves us with the boilerplate and perhaps the document
structure and naming convention. 

While we seem to adjust it frequently, the Internet-Draft
boilerplate has not changed in some months.  It is my
understanding that, if I wrote and published a document (or some
other material subject to copyright) in 1980 (to pick an
arbitrary date) and then claimed a 2006 copyright on it, I would
at least be guilty of bad taste.   My recollection is that, if I
actually tried to register the thing in 2006, asserting a 2006
date, I would be essentially making a claim that it is a new
2006 work and that there would be some perjury issues associated
with my doing so. 

If one extrapolates from that, the ISOC/ IETF Trust Copyright on
I-Ds should show the date of the last revision of the material
over which ISOC or the IETF Trust claim rights, not
automatically the current year.    I would hope that no one
around here would get seriously excited about six months one way
or the other, but I want to check my reasoning up to this point
with you.

Now, what set off the thread to which Simon refers was an
indication that the Secretariat, using an automated process, was
refusing to post Internet Drafts, presumably even individual
author Internet Drafts with limitations on IETF rights, unless
they carried an ISOC Copyright with a 2006 date.  Again, I've
got no problem with the Copyright statement requirement (at
least in this thread).   My problem is with that 2006 date as a
requirement.  It seems to me that a 2005 date is at least as
appropriate and may even be more appropriate given the intent of
dates on copyright statements.

Do you agree?  And, out of curiosity and to better understand
how the process is working, have you been asked about this
before?

regards,
    john

--On Sunday, 05 March, 2006 18:48 -0500 "Contreras, Jorge"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> "     The copyright notice also alerts readers that the
> document is an       IETF Document, and that the IETF Trust
> owns the copyright in the       "collective work", as well as
> certain aspects of the document,       such as its layout, the
> RFC numbering convention and the prefatory       language of
> the document.  This legend is not, however, intended       to
> imply that IETF or the IETF Trust owns the text of any
> Contribution included in an IETF Document.  Rather, ownership
> of       such Contributions is retained by the author(s) or
> remains in the       public domain, as applicable, subject
> only to the licenses granted       to IETF and the IETF Trust
> under Section 3.3 above."
>

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 21:02:47 -0500

While I agree that the 2006 date requirement is surprising, and 
arguably inappropriate as a requirement, I suspect that in fact it is 
more accurate.  I know for example that two I-Ds I am involved with 
went in with 2005 dates when they had been modified in 2006.  (There 
used to be a rule about having to put multiple years on, but that has 
reportedly gone by the wayside.)
I suspect that the vast bulk of I-Ds that went in with 2005 dates did 
so by accident.  That folks had modified the I-D, and simply had not 
modified the copyright date.

In fact, while the I-D checklist requires the copyright notice with a 
year, the text in 3978 does not say that it must be the current 
year.  So there is certainly reason to object to the more rigid enforcement.

Yours,
Joel

At 08:16 PM 3/5/2006, John C Klensin wrote:
>My problem is with that 2006 date as a

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:47:40 +0100

Jorge, let me ask a very specific question based on a hypothetical example.

Joe Blow submits an I-D containing the text

   Two plus three equals six.

The draft is accepted as a WG work item and in the next version, edited
by Jane Doe, after a comment by Jack Sprat on the mailing list, this text reads

   Two plus three equals five.

The draft is submitted to the IESG for publication as an RFC, and
is approved but with an instruction from the IESG to the RFC Editor
to change this sentence to read

   Two times three equals six.

Please tell us who has what rights in this final sentence.

     Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:50:16 +0100

Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> While I agree that the 2006 date requirement is surprising, and arguably 
> inappropriate as a requirement, I suspect that in fact it is more 
> accurate.  I know for example that two I-Ds I am involved with went in 
> with 2005 dates when they had been modified in 2006.  (There used to be 
> a rule about having to put multiple years on, but that has reportedly 
> gone by the wayside.)
> I suspect that the vast bulk of I-Ds that went in with 2005 dates did so 
> by accident.  That folks had modified the I-D, and simply had not 
> year, the text in 3978 does not say that it must be the current year.  
> So there is certainly reason to object to the more rigid enforcement.
> 
> Yours,
> Joel
> 

I don't get either of these points of view.

If what the IETF Trust (or ISOC) copyright statement refers to
is as Jorge describes it, it's the version frozen in time at the
moment of publication that we care about, i.e. the current year.

      Brian

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 10:02:34 +0100

>or the other, but I want to check my reasoning up to this point
John,

My interpretation of the "copyright" is that it pertains to the fact 
that the author chose to put things together in a certain way - the act 
of composing the I-D, not the act of composing the boilerplate.

my interpretation would imply that it doesn't make sense for any I-D to 
sport a copyright statement claiming a different year than the dateline 
on the document.

Since I don't like to ask people to do things that don't make sense, I 
hope my interpretation is right, and that we can just tell people "those 
two years need to match".

xml2rfc should be able do that.

                 Harald

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 06:55:13 -0500

--On Monday, 06 March, 2006 10:02 +0100 Harald Alvestrand
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> understanding that, if I wrote and published a document (or
>> some other material subject to copyright) in 1980 (to pick an
>> arbitrary date) and then claimed a 2006 copyright on it, I
>> would at least be guilty of bad taste.   My recollection is
>> that, if I actually tried to register the thing in 2006,
>> asserting a 2006 date, I would be essentially making a claim
>> that it is a new 2006 work and that there would be some
>> perjury issues associated with my doing so. 
>> 
>> If one extrapolates from that, the ISOC/ IETF Trust Copyright
>> on I-Ds should show the date of the last revision of the
>> material over which ISOC or the IETF Trust claim rights, not
>> around here would get seriously excited about six months one
>> way or the other, but I want to check my reasoning up to this
>> point with you.
>> 
> John,
> 
> My interpretation of the "copyright" is that it pertains to
> the fact that the author chose to put things together in a
> certain way - the act of composing the I-D, not the act of
> composing the boilerplate.

Harald,

I'd like to wait to hear from Jorge before continuing this
discussion further.  But my interpretation is identical to
yours.  However, for at least the limiting case of a
single-author, non-WG I-D (everything else may be more or less a
gray area), that means that the author's name is the name that
must appear on any copyright statement/notification that is
made.  Anything else either constitutes a formal transfer of
copyright to the other entity (ISOC in this case), or an implied
claim that the other entity owned the document from the
beginning (e.g., it was a work for hire or covered by some
contract that created that relationship and transfer), or is
misleading if not fraudulent.  We have repeatedly claimed, and
had long-standing community consensus, that the "formal
transfer" or "ownership forever" cases are not being done or
implied.  That either leaves us with the third case or the
necessity to construct a theory that the ISOC-identifying
copyright notice only covers specific parts of the work.  And it
is precisely that interpretation that has been regularly used
and repeated.
 
> my interpretation would imply that it doesn't make sense for
> any I-D to sport a copyright statement claiming a different
> year than the dateline on the document.

That would be correct if the name on the copyright notification
was the name of the author of the or the name of the formal
document and copyright owner.  But see above.

> Since I don't like to ask people to do things that don't make
> sense, I hope my interpretation is right, and that we can just
> tell people "those two years need to match".

See above.  The above leads me to the conclusion that either the
date doesn't need to reflect the date of the document or to the
conclusion that the notice, in its current form, doesn't belong
there.

> xml2rfc should be able do that.

Sure.  Or, if the document copyright really vests in ISOC, ISOC
could delegate the Secretariat to simply change it if necessary.

Remember, this thread started out in a note that expressed the
concern that we were putting form and procedure ahead of
function if we were using tools that enforced an unnecessary
formalism at the expense of getting documents posted efficiently
for IETF consideration.   I remain in the position in which I
would prefer to focus on that situation rather than opening this
particular can of worms in this WG or elsewhere.  And that is
precisely why I did not raise the issue here.

regards,
    john

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:30:37 -0500

There are several problems with the date rejection:
Most significantly, as far as I am concerned, we never publicly 
stated that the date had to be the current year.  The BCP says 
(year).  It does not actually say that the year has to be the year at 
time of submission.  Id-checklist simply tells people to comply with the BCP.

Secondly, the copyright notice ought to correspond to the time of 
writing.  If someone prepared an I-D in December 2005, and submitted 
it in February 2006, I don't see a reason why it has to say copyright 
2006.  I don't really mind if we require the current year, if it 
accomplishes something useful and we tell people that is the requirement.

And finally, since what we care about is the rights in the overall 
document granted to the IETF, I find focusing on the hypothesis that 
a copyright notice can copyright part of document and that such is 
what we want for some reason, very confusing.  What we want is the 
rights to work with the document.  The copyright notice is currently 
part of getting those rights.

Yours,
Joel

At 02:50 AM 3/6/2006, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>>arguably inappropriate as a requirement, I suspect that in fact it 
>>is more accurate.  I know for example that two I-Ds I am involved 
>>with went in with 2005 dates when they had been modified in 
>>2006.  (There used to be a rule about having to put multiple years 
>>on, but that has reportedly gone by the wayside.)
>>I suspect that the vast bulk of I-Ds that went in with 2005 dates 
>>did so by accident.  That folks had modified the I-D, and simply 
>>had not modified the copyright date.
>>In fact, while the I-D checklist requires the copyright notice with 
>>a year, the text in 3978 does not say that it must be the current year.

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:41:55 -0500

Alternatively, if we say that the copyright notice is the copyright 
at time of publication by the I-D editor, then the I-D editor ought 
to fix image.  (Imagine that we managed to arrange the deadline near 
January 1.  The submission is in one year, and the publication is in 
another.)   Under this assumption, the submitted ought not be 
expected to make the date right.

Yours,
Joel

At 08:30 AM 3/6/2006, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
>it in February 2006, I don't see a reason why it has to say 
>copyright 2006.  I don't really mind if we require the current year, 
>if it accomplishes something useful and we tell people that is the requirement.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:22:07 +0100

Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> Alternatively, if we say that the copyright notice is the copyright at 
> time of publication by the I-D editor, then the I-D editor ought to fix 
> image.  (Imagine that we managed to arrange the deadline near January 
> 1.  The submission is in one year, and the publication is in another.)   
> Under this assumption, the submitted ought not be expected to make the 
> date right.

That's why there is a margin of tolerance around the end of the year.

>> accomplishes something useful and we tell people that is the requirement.

According to the requirements for the future submission tool, RFC 4228,
which went through last call (for Informational), the tool will insist
on not more than three days between draft creation and draft submission.
(Section 7.5.1 bullet 5).

Indeed, I don't see any reason why a 3 month delay makes sense.
(3 months of internal legal delay is entirely possible, at least in
some companies, but we are talking about when the draft is compiled
for submission.)

Pending clarification from Jorge, the copyright date surely applies
to the compilation of original text, modifications made during IETF
discussion, and boilerplate. The appropriate date for that seems to
be the date on which the compilation is made. The copyright in the original
text is a different matter, but that isn't what we are asserting.

     Brian

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 08:58:16 -0800

One Year Vacuum
If you WG Chairs and AD's  had a tighter control loop on what projects were,
who was a part of them, and what the deliverables were for them then this
would be much less of an issue, and the IETF standards process would be
better defined...

The one year period shouldn't happen in a vacuum - but if there has been no
continuing genesis from the 'initiative team' within any WG per se, and they
are not continuing to report that there is ongoing momentum and more coming
for that initiative, then it seems that it would be reasonable to just kill
any and all initiatives not making forward progress in the eyes of the WG.
In fact it seems that it is the responsibility of the WG Chair to do so to
enable that WF to take on another initiative in its place, and not doing so
may have problems with regards to favoritism or interference with an
individuals or entities initiative that was submitted and approved.

A simple WG membership vote at the end of the year as to their projects and
the commitment's to the project could also be brought into place as a
monitoring control as well.

The other thing is it seems like the IESG's best bet is in formalizing the
project workflow and development process, both by more templates and
frameworks, but also by some feed-back process. Bluntly within a WG it might
make sense to when a project comes in, get people to sign up for various
roles within that project, like we would do in the real world as I have
alluded to in the previous commentary here.

With such a system,  the work and the workflow as well as the work-products
developed are more easily tracked by the powers that be no matter what else
happens, and its easier to have rules like "for any initiative the dies on
vine, a way of killing it off at year-end"

This by the way is generally considered a PDLC in the real world, and its
something that doesn't exist here.

Todd

---

From: "Bill Fenner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 08:58:31 -0800

On 3/6/06, Joel M. Halpern <[email-masked]> wrote:
> stated that the date had to be the current year.

1id-guidelines.txt says that it has to be the current year.  I thought
that although the BCP left it unsaid, it was obvious that it meant the
current year.  If it meant that a different year was OK, then this is
a case where the BCP is so unclear it's not at all obvious that it's
unclear.

The new 1id-guidelines.txt was announced in March, 2005, and the
enforcement started around then.

  Bill

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 09:14:13 -0800

But what is doesnt say is whether that means 'this current year ano' or
whether it means 'the year-long timer that was established when this
document was originally filed'. Generally people have always used the years
worth of time from the date of the filing instead of the calendar year which
means maybe an Expiry or Terminus Date should be added to the Document
hearders indicating when they were to expire at the project level - i.e.
when the year's time started?

t
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Fenner" <[email-masked]>
To: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: ISSUE? What does the copyright claim in I-D/RFCs mean?

  Bill

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:57:49 +0100

> The draft is accepted as a WG work item and in the next
> version, edited by Jane Doe, after a comment by Jack Sprat
> on the mailing list, this text reads
 
> The draft is submitted to the IESG for publication as an RFC,
> and is approved but with an instruction from the IESG to the
> RFC Editor to change this sentence to read
 
> Please tell us who has what rights in this final sentence.

My six cents:  Jane as the author has the right to accept this
mutilation of her draft, or to reject it.  If she rejects it
the draft can't be published claiming that Jane is the author.

Somebody else can act aa author and submit a new draft stating
that two times three equals six.
                                Bye, Frank

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 13:41:28 +0100

"Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]> writes:

> series,

I've never understood what this refer to.  Do you mean the short
phrase 'RFC 4711'?  Or some longer text?  I believe it is questionable
whether 'RFC 4711' is copyrightable.

> as well as the "collective" work formed by the individual
> contributions by many individual authors, each of whom retains
> his/her copyright in the contribution.

Right.

> This is explained in the commentary in Scott Bradner's latest I-D
> revising 3978.  See the following language from Sec. 6.1:
>

Oh, that text is very good!  My only concern then are:

 * Explain "RFC numbering convention".

 * Whether the above is an exhaustive list of what the copyright
   statement refer to, or if those things are only examples and the
   complete list may be longer.  I'd prefer if the list was
   exhaustive, so the IPR Trust will not start to claim copyright to
   more and more things further down the road.

Thanks,
Simon