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

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 22:34:35 -0500

This reminds me of a law school exam question!  But here goes:

>Joe Blow submits an I-D containing the text

>   Two plus three equals six.

As the author, Joe owns the copyright in this statement.  Let's assume
for the moment that Joe is self-employed, or that his employer does
not require him to assign copyright in IETF-related matters, so that
Joe retains this copyright in this step.  

Under RFC 3978, Joe grants a license to the IETF (meaning everyone in
the IETF) to use and modify this text within the IETF Standards Process.

>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.

At this point the sentence represents a collective or derivative work by Joe, Jane and
possibly Jack (assuming that he contributed part of the text in his comment).
Joe still owns the rights in "Two plus three equals six", but the rights
in this derivative work will be owned by all two/three co-authors.

Jane and Jack are permitted to modify Joe's work because of the license
that he granted to the IETF (and everyone in the IETF) to make modifications.
Likewise, their modifications are licensed to the IETF and its participants,
so that every element of the new sentence is licensed by the author-owners to
the IETF.

>
>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.

This is a derivative of the Joe/Jane/Jack work.  The people on the IESG
who suggested the change are the "authors" of that change.  However, they
license the change to the IETF just like any other contributors.  Thus,
the collective derivative work, owned by Joe/Jane/Jack/IESG Member, is 
licensed to the IETF for use within the IETF Standards Process.

I would suggest that the IETF Trust should own the collective work
itself.  This point, however, has not yet been formalized in the IETF
rules.  It is quite possibly the case, today, that the authors retain
joint ownership rights in the collective work, and the IETF only has a 
license to the collective work.

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

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From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 07:58:14 -0500

* Explain "RFC numbering convention".

The numbers themselves (RFC 1234), as well as the series consisting
of all the RFC numbers together.  Admittedly, this is a "thin"
copyright, but nonetheless one recognized under
US law.