Subject: Copyright statements in drafts

From: Magnus Westerlund <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 11:23:45 +0200

Hi,

With all the work to get authors to start using the new draft 
boilerplate one question has been raised by one of my WG document 
editors which I couldn't answer.

The RFCs has a copyright statement directly after the status of this 
memo section, in addition to the complete statement in the back. Like in 
the recent published RFC 3783:

Network Working Group                                     M. Chadalapaka
Request for Comments: 3783                                    R. Elliott
Category: Informational                              Hewlett-Packard Co.
                                                                 May 2004

                Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI)
                Command Ordering Considerations with iSCSI

Status of this Memo

    This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
    not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
    memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

    Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract
...

What about these first page copyright notice. Which of the following 
rules is the correct one for a internet draft?
- MUST have the statement
- MUST NOT have the statement
- MAY have the statement

A clarification on this would be beneficial. And it is probably a good 
thing to add this to the ID guidelines.

Thanks

Magnus Westerlund

Multimedia Technologies, Ericsson Research EAB/TVA/A
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Torshamsgatan 23           | Fax   +46 8 7575550
S-164 80 Stockholm, Sweden | mailto: [email-masked]

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 13:11:34 +0200

On quite a few drafts in the past, I used

If published as an RFC, will become Copyright (C) The Internet Society.

Nobody ever objected.

     Brian

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From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 07:27:05 -0700

>- MUST NOT have the statement

It's a MAY. Authors are welcome to use the boilerplate statement and 
thereby assign the copyright of the Internet Draft to ISOC, but they 
don't have to. The main reason why they might not want to (and why I 
don't include any copyright statement on my Internet Drafts) is that, 
if the document doesn't become an RFC, the copyright remains where it 
should: with the author.

Another reason not to use the boilerplate copyright statement on 
drafts is if they are intended to be RFCs that are also published by 
another standards body. It is better to leave the copyright with the 
authors until the two bodies agree on what the final copyright 
statement should be.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

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From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 15:46:29 -0400

>>>>> "Paul" == Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]> writes:

    Paul> At 11:23 AM +0200 5/28/04, Magnus Westerlund wrote:
    >> What about these first page copyright notice. Which of the
    >> following rules is the correct one for a internet draft?  -
    >> MUST have the statement - MUST NOT have the statement - MAY
    >> have the statement

    Paul> It's a MAY. Authors are welcome to use the boilerplate
    Paul> statement and thereby assign the copyright of the Internet
    Paul> Draft to ISOC, but they don't have to. The main reason why
    Paul> they might not want to (and why I don't include any
    Paul> copyright statement on my Internet Drafts) is that, if the
    Paul> document doesn't become an RFC, the copyright remains where
    Paul> it should: with the author.

As a WG chair I'd want tho copyright assigned at the time an item
becomes a WG document.  If you do anything else, then you may find
yourself in a position where you want to take text from a document but
cannot do so.

Copyright should go along with change control.