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Copyright issues affecting current Internet-Drafts
The IETF Chair has requested that all Working Groups be notified of an
intellectual property rights / copyright "brou-ha-ha" that is being
currently discussed on the IETF General Discussion List.
As I understand it, there is a minor defect in RFC 5378, the document that
currently governs rights in IETF submissions and publications.
Specifically, this has to do with rights for derivative works outside of the
IETF standards process.
There is also ongoing discussion of a workaround for this problem. If you
are interested, please consult the IETF General Discussion mailing list
archives. Any discussion of the issue should occur on that list.
One potential impact to the Working Groups is that revised boilerplate text
is likely to be required for submission of I-Ds. That revised text is
expected to be in place well before the I-D submission cut-off date prior to
IETF-74. There may be some confusion during the transition, however.
A second potential impact is that any material that has been derived from a
document published prior to the effective date RFC 5378 (November 11, 2008)
may require special restrictions to be listed in the boilerplate, as to
rights for derivative works outside the IETF standards process.
The "fair use doctrine" would seem to apply to small sections of properly
quoted and cited text from older documents. The issue arises with any
modifications to such text. We have seen such re-use of modified text
proposed in recent WG list discussions on open RADEXT Issues.
All I-D authors need to be generally aware of this issue, and anyone wishing
to include substantial sections of text or any sections of modified text
from a "pre-5378" document need to be particular aware. It does not appear
that this issue will impact our work, if we pay attention to the details.
Following is the details of the issue, as summarized in an announcement from
the Trustees of the IETF Trust (the agency that holds IETF IPR).
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The purpose of this message is twofold:
1) To summarize the issues that some members of our community
have experienced since the publication of RFC 5378 in November 2008,
and
2) To invite community review and discussion on a potential work-around
being considered by the IETF Trustees.
Some I-D authors are having difficulty implementing RFC 5378. An
example of the difficulty is as follows:
- an author wants to include pre-5378 content in a new submission
or contribution to the IETF, but
- s/he is not certain that all of the author(s) of the earlier
material have agreed to license it to the IETF Trust according
to RFC 5378.
If an I-D author includes pre-5378 material in a new document, then s/he
must represent or warrant that all of the authors who created the
pre-5378 material have granted rights for that material to the IETF Trust.
If s/he cannot make this assertion, then s/he has a problem.
This situation has halted the progression of some Internet-Drafts and
interrupted the publication of some RFCs. The Trustees of the IETF Trust
are investigating ways to implement a temporary work-around so that IETF
work can continue to progress. A permanent solution to this "pre-5378
problem" may require an update to RFC 5378, for example new work by the
community to create a 5378-bis document.
The remainder of this message provides an outline of the temporary work-
around being considered by the Trustees.
RFC 5378 sections 1.j and 5.3.c provide the IETF Trust with the
authority to develop legend text for authors to use in situations where
they wish to limit the granting of rights to modify and prepare
derivatives of the documents they submit. The Trustees used this
authority in 2008 to develop and adopt the current "Legal Provisions
Relating to IETF Documents" which are posted at:
http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/.
The Trustees are now considering the creation of optional new legend text
which could be used by authors experiencing the "pre-5378 problem".
The new legend text, if implemented, would do the following:
a. Provide Authors and Contributors with a way to identify (to the
IETF Trust) that their contributions contain material from pre-5378
documents for which RFC 5378 rights to modify the material outside
the IETF standards process may not have been granted, and
b. Provide the IETF Trust and the community with a clear indication
of every document containing pre-5378 content and having the
"pre-5378 problem".
So, how could the creation and use of some new legend text help people
work-around the pre-5378 problem?
The proposed answer is as follows:
1. Anyone having a contribution with the "pre-5378" problem should add
new legend text to the contribution, to clearly flag that it includes
pre-5378 material for which all of the rights needed under RFC 5378
may not have been granted, and
2. The IETF Trust will consider authors and contributors (with the
pre-5378 problem) to have met their RFC 5378 obligations if the
new legend text appears on their documents, and
3. Authors and contributors should only resort to adding the new
legend text to their documents (per #1) if they cannot develop
certainty that all of the author(s) of pre-5378 material in
their documents have agreed to license the pre-5378 content to
the IETF Trust according to RFC 5378.
The proposed wording for the new legend text is now available for your
review and comments in section 6.c.iii of a draft revision to the
IETF Trust's "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents" located at
http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html.
Please note that the above document also contains new text in section 5.c
dealing with "License Limitations".
If your review and feedback on this proposed work-around is positive,
then the new text may be adopted by the Trustees in early February 2009,
and then be published as an official revision to the Legal Provisions
document. If so adopted, Internet-Drafts with pre-5378 material may
advance within the Internet standards process and get published as RFCs
where otherwise qualified to do so. Unless covered by sections 6.c.i or
6.c.ii, authors of documents in which there is no pre-5378
material must provide a RFC 5378 license with no limitation on
modifications outside the IETF standards process.
The IETF Trust will not grant the right to modify or prepare derivative
works of any specific RFC or other IETF Contribution outside the IETF
standards process until RFC 5378 rights pertaining to that document have
been obtained from all authors and after compliance by the IETF Trust
with RFC 5377. The Trustees will establish one or more mechanisms by
which authors of pre-5378 documents may grant RFC 5378 rights.
The Trustees hereby invite your review, comments and suggestions on this
proposed work-around to the "pre-5378 problem". The period for this review
is 30 days. Microsoft WORD and PDF versions of the proposed revisions are
attached to this message. Copies are also available on the IETF Trust
website under the heading "DRAFT Policy and Procedures Being Developed" at:
http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html
All feedback submitted before the end of February 7th will be considered by
the Trustees. A decision on whether to move forward with this proposal will
be made and communicated to you before the end of February 15th.
Please give this your attention.
Regards and Happy New Year !
Ed Juskevicius, on behalf of the IETF Trustees
edj.etc at gmail.com
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