What is much less clear is the issues surrounding excerpts, or
derivative works. The original query pretty clearly asked/asserted
whether older RFCs were "in the public domain". That's pretty far
removed from "republication in their entirety".
Actually, what he has in mind is indeed republication in their
entirety.
IANAL, but if you've followed discussions in places like the IPR WG,
it doesn't take much to conclude that this is a complicated space in
which rules interpreted by real lawyers play a big role.
Since approximately my entire income depends on copyright law (I write
books), I have looked at Title 17 and its interpretation pretty
closely. I have to conclude that given the facts surrounding the
early RFCs: pre-1976, no copyright notice, many written on government
contract, and a history of widespread copying and reuse without
explicit permission, it'd be extremely hard to make a case that there
were any limits on their use.
R's,
John
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