Ted Hardie asked me:
Are you willing to personally indemnify the individuals who are later
sued by those who don't hold this view or are you willing to pay for
the appropriate insurance cover?
Of course not. Are you (or your company) warning me that *you* might sue me
for infringement of anything you contributed to a joint industry standard
RFC? If so, thanks for the warning. Now, I'll ignore it. As I hope will most
of the people and companies who rely on IETF RFCs. You can't threaten me by
listing hundreds of people who had something to do with an RFC in the past.
Or make me beg you or your company or any of those people for permission in
order to treat an industry standard as a part of our common heritage with
the authority in the IETF Trust to deal with it (as a copyrighted document)
as it wishes in the public interest.
It would be reasonable for everyone in that list to believe that
their work could be re-used within the IETF context (it post
dates RFC 2026 sufficiently for that). We have now changed
the rules such that their work can be used in other contexts,
provided the Trust authorizes it; prior to that, the individuals
would have had to authorize it.
Under US law, a joint copyright owner doesn't have to ask anyone's
permission to change the rules. Sorry you don't like that. Or are you
threatening to sue the IETF Trust if it changes the rules? Based on what
legal principle?
/Larry
-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Hardie [mailto:hardie(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 11:42 AM
To: lrosen(_at_)rosenlaw(_dot_)com; 'IETF Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Trustees] ANNOUNCEMENT: The IETF Trustees invite your
reviewand comments on a proposed Work-Around to the Pre-5378 Problem
At 11:09 AM -0800 1/9/09, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
We should accept the notion that IETF, and
now the IETF Trust, as a public interest corporation that manages the
expressive creative activities through which these joint works are
written,
is the joint owner of copyright in every RFC. As such, a license from the
IETF Trust is all we need to create derivative works, without even asking
the co-authors of those old (or new) documents.
Does anyone here believe that the IETF Trust doesn't own a joint
copyright
interest in every RFC it publishes and can thus authorize derivative
works
of those RFCs? [1]
Are you willing to personally indemnify the individuals who are later
sued by those who don't hold this view or are you willing to pay for
the appropriate insurance cover?
Take a look for a moment at RFC 2822. It is a successor to a document
that does not contain an ISOC copyright (because ISOC came into being
approximately 10 years later). It does have an ISOC copyright
but RFC 2822 also has a very extensive list of contributors:
Matti Aarnio Barry Finkel Larry Masinter
Tanaka Akira Erik Forsberg Denis McKeon
Russ Allbery Chuck Foster William P McQuillan
Eric Allman Paul Fox Alexey Melnikov
Harald Tveit Alvestrand Klaus M. Frank Perry E. Metzger
Ran Atkinson Ned Freed Steven Miller
Jos Backus Jochen Friedrich Keith Moore
Bruce Balden Randall C. Gellens John Gardiner Myers
Dave Barr Sukvinder Singh Gill Chris Newman
Alan Barrett Tim Goodwin John W. Noerenberg
John Beck Philip Guenther Eric Norman
J. Robert von Behren Tony Hansen Mike O'Dell
Jos den Bekker John Hawkinson Larry Osterman
D. J. Bernstein Philip Hazel Paul Overell
James Berriman Kai Henningsen Jacob Palme
Norbert Bollow Robert Herriot Michael A. Patton
Raj Bose Paul Hethmon Uzi Paz
Antony Bowesman Jim Hill Michael A. Quinlan
Scott Bradner Paul E. Hoffman Eric S. Raymond
Randy Bush Steve Hole Sam Roberts
Tom Byrer Kari Hurtta Hugh Sasse
Bruce Campbell Marco S. Hyman Bart Schaefer
Larry Campbell Ofer Inbar Tom Scola
W. J. Carpenter Olle Jarnefors Wolfgang Segmuller
Michael Chapman Kevin Johnson Nick Shelness
Richard Clayton Sudish Joseph John Stanley
Maurizio Codogno Maynard Kang Einar Stefferud
Jim Conklin Prabhat Keni Jeff Stephenson
R. Kelley Cook John C. Klensin Bernard Stern
Steve Coya Graham Klyne Peter Sylvester
Mark Crispin Brad Knowles Mark Symons
Dave Crocker Shuhei Kobayashi Eric Thomas
Matt Curtin Peter Koch Lee Thompson
Michael D'Errico Dan Kohn Karel De Vriendt
Cyrus Daboo Christian Kuhtz Matthew Wall
Jutta Degener Anand Kumria Rolf Weber
Mark Delany Steen Larsen Brent B. Welch
Steve Dorner Eliot Lear Dan Wing
Harold A. Driscoll Barry Leiba Jack De Winter
Michael Elkins Jay Levitt Gregory J. Woodhouse
Robert Elz Lars-Johan Liman Greg A. Woods
Johnny Eriksson Charles Lindsey Kazu Yamamoto
Erik E. Fair Pete Loshin Alain Zahm
Roger Fajman Simon Lyall Jamie Zawinski
Patrik Faltstrom Bill Manning Timothy S. Zurcher
Claus Andre Farber John Martin
It would be reasonable for everyone in that list to believe that
their work could be re-used within the IETF context (it post
dates RFC 2026 sufficiently for that). We have now changed
the rules such that their work can be used in other contexts,
provided the Trust authorizes it; prior to that, the individuals
would have had to authorize it. To let the Trust authorize that without
explicit permission requires us to believe that everyone in that
list (and every other similar list) either believed at the time
that their work could be so used, believes now that it can
be so used, or is sufficiently laissez-faire that they won't
do anything to stop it, even if they don't agree.
My reading of John's point is that this creates either a coordination
burden or a legal risk for the authors re-using text created prior to
the new rules. He doesn't want to bear that burden/risk, and I don't
think the Trust can (because it would have to analyze each document
prior to assuming it, as it would be otherwise trivial for
someone to submit a draft that clearly had no permission from
the copyright holders).
He wants an out that says "I'm granting these rights to
my text, you worry about any other rights". As a transition
to text based on documents written within the new rules,
that may be the way to go. What none of us wants is to
have to restart this conversation at ground zero, because a lot
of the other rights (like re-using code) set out in the new
document should be applying to new work in new drafts now.
Just my two cents, untarnished by law degrees or other
impediments.
regards,
Ted Hardie
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