Subject: Why multiple copyrights notices may be useful

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:49:11 +0100

Often when I extract some material from an RFC, like the Kerberos V5
ASN.1 schema or the SHA-2 source code, but it could include MIBs etc,
that extracted file will need to have a copyright notice on it.

I have traditionally added the ISOC copyright because I believed it
applied to more than the boilerplate, but this now appear incorrect.

What should I put as the copyright owner of the material?

If the ASN.1 schema or C source code contained a copyright notice,
this problem would go away.

I'd like to understand what problems are _created_ by having multiple
copyright notices in order to understand how to improve this solution
to this problem.

Thoughts on whether people agree with me that this is a problem or not
would also be useful.

Thanks,
Simon

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From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:58:15 -0800

It is....

... f the code was to be controlled under a separate publications or use
rule (licenses) then this might be desireable.

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 22:09:23 +0100

I have noticed that RFC 4122 contain this notice:

/*
** Copyright (c) 1990- 1993, 1996 Open Software Foundation, Inc.
** Copyright (c) 1989 by Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, Ca. &
** Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Mass.
** Copyright (c) 1998 Microsoft.
** To anyone who acknowledges that this file is provided "AS IS"
** without any express or implied warranty: permission to use, copy,
** modify, and distribute this file for any purpose is hereby
** granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notices and
** this notice appears in all source code copies, and that none of
** the names of Open Software Foundation, Inc., Hewlett-Packard
** Company, Microsoft, or Digital Equipment Corporation be used in
** advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
** without specific, written prior permission. Neither Open Software
** Foundation, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Microsoft, nor Digital
** Equipment Corporation makes any representations about the
** suitability of this software for any purpose.
*/

This is exactly the situation where I believe multiple copyright
notices are useful.

Perhaps it would be useful to clarify the rules regarding multiple
copyright notices.  I think BCP 78 section 5.4 is too terse on this:

   Additional copyright notices are not permitted in IETF Documents
   except in the case where such document is the product of a joint
   development effort between the IETF and another standards development
   organization or the document is a republication of the work of
   another standards organization.  Such exceptions must be approved on
   an individual basis by the IAB.

Did the IAB approve the additional copyright notice in RFC 4122?

I believe the above paragraph should be removed when we update the
document.

Going over the motivation behind disallowing multiple copyrights may
be an illuminating process.

Thanks,
Simon

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From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:48:08 -0800

In  response to SIMON -
Question for you lawyers - Larry/Jorge is the printing of a document such as
this a criminal act? My understanding is that anything printed that formally
alters an existing copyright without the owners permission is a crime. Is
that true or not gentlemen?

I can see issues with the release in the Copyright since all submissions
were deemed to have been turned over to first the IETF by the submitters who
would likely not have that right herein, and then by ISOC/CNRI to the IP
Trust -

Todd Glassey

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:22:32 +0100 (CET)

Hi Simon,
my recollection of the multiple copyright notice subject during the ipr WG
meeting here in Dallas is as follows:
- we may want to have only a single IETF copyright notice in our
documents.  Today, we have two: the abbreviated one at the begin of the
document, and the full copyright notice at the end.  It was agreed to take
the subject to the list.
- it was noted that there are valid cases where a non-IETF copyright
notice should co-exist with the IETF copyright notice, in the same
document.  I don't recollect anyone has questioned that.
Regards,
Stephan

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:42:51 +0100

> document, and the full copyright notice at the end.  It was agreed to take

Ah, I may have confused that issue with the issue of having other
non-IETF copyright in a document.

> document.  I don't recollect anyone has questioned that.

Excellent!  I have now added non-IETF copyright notices to my soon to
be last called rfc3548bis, which include source code.

My past experience has been that somewhere in the process of a getting
a document published, it was a hard requirement to remove any non-IETF
copyrights.  I hope the process can be fixed here, if the intention
actually is to permit them (which I believe is the correct approach).
I can try to dig up the source of this request, if someone finds it
useful (and assuming my recollection of this is correct).

Thanks,
Simon

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From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:32:00 -0800

How will you deal with Copyrights not compatible with each other?. The
problem is that the IETF's copyrights may not change existing copyrights on
a document without proper releases.

Certainly the IETF cannot change existing copyrights, and while conveyance
from someone who actually owns something is a no-brainer, but how does the
IETF deal with the situation where the submitter is not the actual owner of
the IP, like when I submitted the ACTS draft for NIST.

The protocol was designed by Michael Lombardi, Judah Levine and others who
are NIST employees. So to sidestep the dance with NIST Legal, I filed the
draft with NO IP Rights moving forward.

This is the perfect example since I am about to refile this as a IETF RFC -
and since this singular protocol is in use over wired and wireless networks
everywhere, and moreso now that VOIP is about, that this protocol's
standardization needs to be completed.

Todd Glassey

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:00:52 +0100

"todd glassey" <[email-masked]> writes:

> How will you deal with Copyrights not compatible with each other?

This is frequently done in the free software world already, so it is
not that complicated.

First, I'm assuming you mean the copying conditions associated with
the copyright, and not the actual copyright.

The IETF copying conditions license should always hold.

Any additional copying conditions may give more rights to third
parties.

Any additional copying conditions may grant _less_ rights in a license
statement, but then everyone has those rights anyway, through the IETF
conditions.  This typically happen due to subtleties in the license
rather than through an intention to grant less rights.

In other words, I think of combining multiple licenses as an OR
operation, rather than an AND operation.

/Simon

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From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:22:53 -0800

Simon - layering release rights may be done with CR's already but its a
complex process - and I disagree that it is an OR Operation - its actually
an AND - which is to say that the IETF's copyright statement cannot grant
more rights than it gets in the submission process. Which is to say the
model is (SUBMISSIONS RELEASE - SR) AND (REPUBLISHED AS RIGHTS - RAR) where
the SR MUST always be GTE than RAR; For each 1 produced from the AND - that
CR Construct is carried through to the end user.

That is why I was worried about the "Any and All Uses" language since that
appears to give away any and all rights to anything pertaining to that IP
and that clearly is something that most if all IP Submitters to the IETF
would say absolutely NO to. In fact in many instances this would pertain to
patent rights as well and that is something that the IETF has said it was
never going to ask for...

So which is it???  - A or B???

A - republicaiton rights for the purpose of making a standard,

B-  gifts to the ISOC with no strings attached

Todd