Network Working Group S. Bradner
Internet-Draft Harvard University
Editor
June 2006
RFC 3978 Update
<draft-ietf-ipr-rules-update-06.txt>
Status of this Memo
By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.
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The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
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This Internet-Draft will expire on August 25, 2006.
Abstract
This document modifies RFC 3978 "IETF Rights in Contributions" as
follows: (1) recognizing that the IETF Trust is now the proper
custodian of all IETF-related intellectual property rights, (2)
giving IETF Trust the right to permit extraction of material from
RFCs, and (3) giving IETF Trust the right to permit others to create
derivative works outside the IETF Standards Process.
This document does not constrain how the IETF Trust exercises those
rights.
Copyright Notice
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Copyright (C) The Internet Society. (2006)
1. Introduction
1.1 IETF Trust
Currently the IETF requires that authors of Contributions to the IETF
grant to the IETF (meaning the full set of participants in the IETF
Standards Process) a limited set of non-exclusive rights and
permissions as part of the process of submitting such Contribution.
These rights and permissions are detailed in "IETF Rights in
Contributions" (RFC 3978 - BCP 78) [RFC3978].
The IETF Trust was recently formed to act as the administrative
custodian of all copyrights and other intellectual property rights
relating to the IETF Standards Process that had previously been held
by ISOC and CNRI (See [reference to IETF Trust Agreement]). This
document modifies RFC 3978 in order to implement this structure.
Most importantly, it alters the license-grant path as follows:
whereas previously authors of Contributions to the IETF would grant a
license both to ISOC and to all IETF participants, it is now proposed
that such authors grant a license to the IETF Trust (in Section 3.3).
This document concerns itself only with "inbound" rights - those
rights to be granted to the IETF Trust by relevant Contributors. A
separate document will deal with "outbound" rights - those rights
granted by the IETF Trust to others.
This introductory section is to provide context for the reader.
Sections 2 and 3 of this document are intended to be normative.
1.2. Extractions from RFCs
Many people have expressed a desire to extract material from IETF
RFCs for use in documentation, textbooks, on-line help systems, and
for similar uses. In addition, some IETF RFCs contain MIBs and other
types of program code that could be compiled.
1.3 Right to reprint RFCs
Since the start of the RFC series, third parties have been free to
reproduce RFCs as-is or as translations. The permission to do so was
not specifically noted in early RFCs (other than a note to say that
the distribution of the RFC was unlimited). The copyright notice
introduced with RFC 1602 specifically granted these permissions. But
an unintended byproduct of the attempt in BCP 78 to simplify the
copyright statement in published RFCs was the lack of any specific
statement of these permissions in the RFC copyright notice or in BCP
78. A new Section 3.3(F) should be added to RFC 3978 to clarify that
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the Contributor permits the IETF Trust to grant this right to third
parties.
1.4 Derivative Works
Currently the IETF obtains from Contributors the right to prepare
derivative works of their Contributions within the IETF Standards
Process. This is done in RFC 3978 Section 3.3 (a) (C). That
paragraph should be modified to grant the IETF Trust the ability to
authorize the preparation of derivative works without limiting such
development to the IETF Standards Process. Such a paragraph would
not, by itself, grant any additional permissions outside of the IETF,
but would empower the IETF Trust to authorize the development of
derivative works outside of the IETF Standards Process. One example
of where the IETF Trust might grant such a right is the case where
another standards development organization (SDO) wants to update or
extend an IETF technology (which would normally be done by the SDO
sending their requirements to the IETF) but the IETF no longer has a
working group focused on the particular technology and the IETF does
not have the interest to create a new working group.
1.5 No Retroactive Effect
The addition of these rights to those granted by Contributors under
RFC 3978 starts with the publication of this memo as a RFC. This
memo does not retroactively obtain these rights from Contributions
that predate the publication of this memo as a RFC. Accordingly, the
legends and other text accompanying this memo still reflect the
provisions of RFC 3978, even though those provisions will be amended
once this memo is published as an RFC. However, nothing prevents the
Contributors of such Contributions voluntarily granting these rights
retroactively.
2. General Statements
2.1 In order to clarify that Contributors are bound by all provisions
of RFC 3978 upon submission of a Contribution to the IETF, the
following paragraph is moved from Section 3.3 to the end of Section
3.1, with clarifying adjustments:
"By submission of a Contribution, each person actually submitting
the Contribution, and each named co-Contributor, is deemed to
agree to the terms and conditions set forth in this document, on
his or her own behalf and on behalf of the organization the
Contributor represents or is sponsored by (if any), when
submitting the Contribution."
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2.2 Because it is necessary in this document to refer to individual
IETF participants, the following sentence is added at the end of the
definition of "IETF" in Section 1(a) of RFC 3978:
"An "IETF Participant" shall mean any such individual
participant."
2.3 To make it easier to change the ID boilerplate when needed Sections
5.1 to 5.6 are replaced with the following:
"5.1. IPR Disclosure Acknowledgement (required in all Internet-
Drafts but not in RFCs)
All I-Ds MUST include the exact text for an IPR Disclosure
Acknowledgement from http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-
derivworks
5.2. Derivative Works Limitation
If the Contributor desires to eliminate the IETF's right to make
modifications and derivative works of an IETF Contribution (other
than translations), one of the two Derivative Works Limitation
notices from http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-derivworks may be
included in the Status of Memo section of an Internet-Draft and
included in a published RFC.
In the cases of MIB or PIB modules and in other cases where the
Contribution includes material that is meant to be extracted in
order to be used, the text of the MIB extraction notice from
http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-derivworks should be appended
to the Derivative Works Limitation.
These notices may not be used with any standards-track document or
with most working group documents, except as discussed in Section
7.3 below, since the IETF must retain change control over its
documents and the ability to augment, clarify and enhance the
original IETF Contribution in accordance with the IETF Standards
Process. A fuller discussion of the rationale behind these
requirements is contained in Section 7.3 below.
5.3. Publication Limitation
If the Contributor only wants the IETF Contribution to be made
available in an Internet-Draft (i.e., does not want the IETF
Contribution to be published as an RFC) then the Contributor may
include the Publication Limitation notice from
http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-derivworks in the Status of
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Memo section of the Internet-Draft.
This notice can be used on IETF Contributions that are intended to
provide background information to educate and to facilitate
discussions within IETF working groups but are not intended to be
published as an RFCs.
5.4. Copyright Notice (required for all IETF Documents)
(Normally placed at the end of the IETF Document.)
The Copyright notice from http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-
derivworks must be included in all Internet-Drafts.
Additional copyright notices are not permitted in IETF Documents
except in the case where such document is the product of a joint
development effort between the IETF and another standards
development organization or the document is a republication of the
work of another standards organization. Such exceptions must be
approved on an individual basis by the IAB.
5.5. Disclaimer (required in all IETF Documents)
(Normally placed at the end of the IETF Document after the
copyright notice.)
The Disclaimer notice from http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-
derivworks must be included in all Internet-Drafts.
5.6. Exceptions
Notwithstanding the provisions of this Section 5, in certain
limited cases an abbreviated notice may be placed on certain types
of derivative works of IETF Documents in accordance with this
Section 5.6.
a. in MIB modules, PIB modules and similar material commonly
extracted from IETF Documents, except for material that is
being placed under IANA maintenance, the abbreviated MIB notice
from http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-derivworks shall be
included in the body of the material that will be extracted in
lieu of the notices otherwise required by Section 5.
When the MIB or PIB module is the initial version of a module
that is to be maintained by the IANA, the abbreviated MIB
Copyright Notice from http://www.ietf.org/ipr-boilerplate-
derivworks notice shall be included:
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Variations of these abbreviated notices are not permitted
except in cases where the material to be extracted is the
product of a joint development effort between the IETF and
another standards development organization or is a
republication of the work of another standards organization.
Such variations must be approved on an individual basis by the
IAB.
b. short excerpts of IETF Documents presented in electronic help
systems, for example, the DESCRIPTION clauses for MIB
variables, do not need to include a copyright notice.
3. Rights Granted By Contributors to IETF Trust - New Section 3.3
The following text describes the rights that are granted by each
Contributor to the IETF Trust and replaces Section 3.3 of RFC 3978 in
full:
"3.3. Rights Granted by Contributors to IETF Trust
To the extent that a Contribution or any portion thereof is
protected by copyright or other rights of authorship, the
Contributor, and each named co-Contributor, and the organization
he or she represents or is sponsored by (if any) grants a
perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide
right and license to the IETF Trust under all such copyrights and
other rights in the Contribution:
(A) to copy, publish, display, and distribute the Contribution as
part of the IETF Standards Process or in an Internet-Draft,
(B) to prepare or allow the preparation of translations of the
Contribution into languages other than English,
(C) unless explicitly disallowed in the notices contained in a
Contribution [as per Section 5.2 below],
(1) to modify or prepare derivative works (in addition to
translations) that are based on or incorporate all or part
of the Contribution or comment upon it, within the IETF
Standards Process, and
(2) as determined by the IETF Trust, to grant third parties the
right to modify or prepare derivative works of the
Contribution outside of the IETF Standards Process, and to
copy, publish, display and distribute such modifications or
derivative works outside the IETF Standards Process, subject
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to a requirement to properly acknowledge the IETF (it being
understood that neither consent of, nor notice to, the
Contributor shall be required for any such grant),
provided that in each case the license to such modification or
derivative works does not grant any more rights than the
license to the original Contribution, and
(D) to reproduce any trademarks, service marks or trade names
which are included in the Contribution solely in connection
with the reproduction, distribution or publication of the
Contribution and derivative works thereof as permitted by this
Section 3.3, provided that when reproducing Contributions,
trademark and service mark identifiers used in the
Contribution, including (TM) and (R) will be preserved, and
(E) to extract, copy, publish, display, distribute and incorporate
into other works, for any purpose (and not limited to use
within the IETF Standards Process), all or any portion of the
Contribution without modification (other than non-substantive
modifications such as reformatting, translation into languages
other than English or compilation of source code statements
into executable code), and further provided that the notices
required by Sections 5.4 or 5.6 below, as applicable, are
included, and
(F) to permit third parties to copy, publish, display and
distribute the Contribution without modification, as part of a
full, unmodified RFC and to permit third parties to translate
the Contribution as part of a full, unmodified RFC into
languages other than English, for any purpose, whether or not
within the IETF Standards Process.
(G) to permit the IETF Trust to sublicense these rights to the
extent of the original grant of right and license, including
its use in a working collection or collective work.
The licenses granted in this Section 3.3 shall not be deemed to
grant any right under any patent, patent application or other
similar intellectual property right disclosed by the
Contributor under BCP 79."
4. Instruct IETF Trust to grant rights to IETF participants
[ NOTE: this section has been added at the request of the General
Area AD. This direction may be better placed in another document.]
The following to be inserted between sections 8 and 9 of RFC 3978.
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"The IETF Trust is hereby instructed to grant the rights granted
in section 3.3 above to all participants in the IETF process as
needed for the operation of the IETF standards process."
5. Legends and Notifications
The legends and notifications required by RFC 3978 are hereby updated
as set forth below to reflect the other provisions of this document.
5.1 The first paragraph of Section 5 of RFC 3978 explains the
requirement for applying certain notices and legends to IETF
documents. There has been considerable confusion in the past
regarding the meaning of the copyright notice on these documents.
Accordingly, the first paragraph of Section 5 is hereby amended as
follows to explain the purpose and meaning of this copyright notice
requirement, as well as to substitute "IETF Trust" for "ISOC":
"The IETF requires that certain notices and disclaimers described
in this Section 5 be reproduced verbatim in all IETF Documents
(including copies, derivative works and translations of IETF
Documents, but subject to the limited exceptions noted in Section
5.2). This requirement protects the IETF Trust, IETF and IETF
Participants from liabilities connected with these documents.
The copyright notice also alerts readers that the document is an
IETF Document, and that the IETF Trust owns certain aspects of the
document, such as its layout, the RFC numbering convention and the
prefatory language of the document. This legend is not, however,
intended to imply that IETF or the IETF Trust owns the text of any
Contribution included in an IETF Document. Rather, ownership of
such Contributions is retained by the author(s) or remains in the
public domain, as applicable, subject only to the licenses granted
to IETF and the IETF Trust under Section 3.3 above."
5.2 Update copyright statement and clarify text about additional
copyright statements
The creation of the IETF Trust to hold IETF-related IPR requires that
the copyright statement in Section 5.4 be changed. Since it has been
established practice to include a one-line copyright statement near
the beginning of IETF Documents this should be mentioned.
The text in Section 5.4 about multiple copyright statements has
occasionally been misinterpreted so should be clarified.
5.2.1 Revised Section 5.4
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5.4. Copyright Notices (required for all IETF Documents)
(Normally placed at the end of the IETF Document.)
"Portions Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (year).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and
restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth
therein, the authors retain all their rights."
Only copyright notices for the IETF Trust are permitted in IETF
Documents except in the case where such a document is the product
of a joint development effort between the IETF and another
standards development organization or the document is a
republication of the work of another standards organization. Such
exceptions must be approved on an individual basis by the IAB.
5.3 In Section 5.6 of RFC 3978, all occurrences of "Internet Society"
or "ISOC" are replaced by "IETF Trust".
to reduce confusion the note about multiple copyright notices
5.4 In Section 5.5 of RFC 3978, ", THE IETF TRUST" is inserted after
"INTERNET SOCIETY".
6. Errata
6.1 The two sentences of Section 4.2(a)(C) are combined into a single
sentence separated by a comma.
6.2 In Section 7.1, all occurrences of "Internet Society" or "ISOC" are
replaced by "IETF Trust".
6.3 The section reference at the end of the first paragraph of Section
7.3 is changed from 3.3(E) to 3.3(C).
6.4. In Section 8, ", the IETF Trust" is inserted after "ISOC".
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC 3978] Bradner, S., Ed., "IETF Rights in Contributions", BCP 78,
RFC 3978, March 2005.
[BCP 101] Austein, R., and B. Wijnen, "Structure of the IETF
Administrative Support Activity (IASA)," BCP 101, RFC 4071, April
2005.
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[IETF Trust Agreement?]
8. Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jorge Contreras from Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and
Dorr LLP who provided a significant rewrite of my material.
9. Editor's Address
Scott Bradner
Harvard University
29 Oxford St.
Cambridge MA, 02138
Phone: +1 617 495 3864
EMail: sob@harvard.edu
10. Full copyright statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject
to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and
except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Intellectual Property
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
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specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to
bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent
applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology
that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the
information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
Changes
Note to RFC Editor - remove this section if this document is
published as an RFC
version 3 to version 4
major rewrite based on input from Jorge
version 4 to version 5
various places cleaned up removal of outbound rights
version 5 to version 6
added section 2.3
added a new section 4 and renumbered the old section 4 and the
sections following
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