|
Network Working Group Request for Comments: 3978 BCP: 78 Obsoletes: 3667 Updates: 2026 Category: Best Current Practice |
S. Bradner, Ed. Harvard University March 2005 |
This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright © The Internet Society (2005).
The IETF policies about rights in Contributions to the IETF are designed to ensure that such Contributions can be made available to the IETF and Internet communities while permitting the authors to retain as many rights as possible. This memo details the IETF policies on rights in Contributions to the IETF. It also describes the objectives that the policies are designed to meet. This memo updates RFC 2026, and, with RFC 3979, replaces Section 10 of RFC 2026.
1. Definitions
2. Introduction
3. Rights in IETF Contributions
3.1. General Policy
3.2. Confidentiality Obligations
3.3. Granting of Rights and Permissions
3.4. Representations and Warranties
3.5. No Duty to Publish
3.6. Trademarks
4. Rights in RFC Editor Contributions
4.1. Requirements from Section 3
4.2. Granting of Rights and Permissions
5. Notices Required in IETF Documents
5.1. IPR Disclosure Acknowledgement
5.2. Derivative Works Limitation
5.3. Publication Limitation
5.4. Copyright Notice
5.5. Disclaimer
5.6. Exceptions
6. Notices and Rights Required in RFC Editor Contributions
7. Exposition of why these procedures are the way they are
7.1. Rights Granted in IETF Contributions
7.2. Rights to use Contributed Material
7.3. Right to Produce Derivative Works
7.4. Rights to use Trademarks
7.5. Who Does This Apply To?
8. Contributions Not Subject to Copyright
9. Security Considerations
10. References
10.1. Normative References
10.2. Informative References
11. Acknowledgements
Editor's Address
Full Copyright Statement
The following definitions are for terms used in the context of this document. Other terms, including "IESG," "ISOC," "IAB," and "RFC Editor," are defined in [RFC2028].
Statements made outside of an IETF session, mailing list or other function, that are clearly not intended to be input to an IETF activity, group or function, are not IETF Contributions in the context of this document.
Under the laws of most countries and current international treaties (for example the "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Work" [Berne]), authors obtain numerous rights in the works they produce automatically upon producing them. These rights include copyrights, moral rights and other rights. In many cases, if the author produces a work within the scope of his or her employment, most of those rights are usually assigned to the employer, either by operation of law or, in many cases, under contract. (The Berne Convention names some rights as "inalienable", which means that the author retains them in all cases.)
This document details the rights that the IETF requires in IETF Contributions and rights the IETF, as publisher of Internet-Drafts, requires in all such Drafts including RFC Editor Contributions. The RFC Editor may also define additional rights required for RFC Editor Contributions.
In order for works to be used within the IETF Standards Process or to be published as Internet-Drafts, certain limited rights in all Contributions must be granted to the IETF and Internet Society (ISOC). In addition, Contributors must make representations to IETF and ISOC regarding their ability to grant these rights. These necessary rights and representations have until now been laid out in Section 10 of [RFC2026]. In the years since [RFC2026] was published there have been a number of times when the exact intent of Section 10 has been the subject of vigorous debate within the IETF community. The aim of this document is to clarify various ambiguities in Section 10 of [RFC2026] that led to these debates and to amplify the policy in order to clarify what the IETF is currently doing.
Section 1 gives definitions used in describing these policies. Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this document address the rights in Contributions previously covered by Section 10 of [RFC2026] and the "Note Well" explanatory text presented at many IETF activities.
Sections 7 and 8 then explain the rationale for these provisions, including some of the clarifications that have become understood since the adoption of [RFC2026]. The rules and procedures set out in this document are not intended to substantially modify or alter the IETF's current policy toward Contributions.
A companion document [RFC3979] deals with rights in technologies developed or specified as part of the IETF Standards Process. This document is not intended to address those issues.
The rights addressed in this document fall into the following categories:
This document is not intended as legal advice. Readers are advised to consult their own legal advisors if they would like a legal interpretation of their rights or the rights of the IETF in any Contributions they make.
The following are the rights the IETF requires in all IETF Contributions:
In all matters of copyright and document procedures, the intent is to benefit the Internet community and the public at large, while respecting the legitimate rights of others.
No information or document that is subject to any requirement of confidentiality or any restriction on its dissemination may be submitted as a Contribution or otherwise considered in any part of the IETF Standards Process, and there must be no assumption of any confidentiality obligation with respect to any Contribution. Each Contributor agrees that any statement in a Contribution, whether generated automatically or otherwise, that states or implies that the Contribution is confidential or subject to any privilege, can be disregarded for all purposes, and will be of no force or effect.
By submission of a Contribution, each person actually submitting the Contribution, and each named co-Contributor, is deemed to agree to the following terms and conditions, and to grant the following rights, 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.
(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], to prepare derivative works (other than translations) that are based on or incorporate all or part of the Contribution, or comment upon it, within the IETF Standards Process. The license to such derivative works not granting the ISOC and the IETF any more rights than the license to the original Contribution,
(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 paragraph. When reproducing Contributions, the IETF will preserve trademark and service mark identifiers used by the Contributor of the Contribution, including (TM) and (R) where appropriate, and
(E) to extract, copy, publish, display, distribute, modify and incorporate into other works, for any purpose (and not limited to use within the IETF Standards Process) any executable code or code fragments that are included in any IETF Document (such as MIB and PIB modules), subject to the requirements of Section 5 (it also being understood that the licenses granted under this paragraph (E) shall not be deemed to grant any right under any patent, patent application or other similar
intellectual property right disclosed by the Contributor under [RFC3979]).
With respect to each Contribution, each Contributor represents that to the best of his or her knowledge and ability:
The Contributor, and each named co-Contributor, acknowledges that the IETF has no duty to publish or otherwise use or disseminate any Contribution. The IETF reserves the right to withdraw or cease using any Contribution that does not comply with the requirements of Section 3.4 and Section 3.3 or 4.2.
Contributors, and each named co-Contributor, who claim trademark rights in terms used in their IETF Contributions are requested to state specifically what conditions apply to implementers of the technology relative to the use of such trademarks. Such statements
should be submitted in the same way as is done for other intellectual property claims. (See [RFC3979] Section 6.)
The following are the rights the IETF, as the publisher of Internet- Drafts, requires in all RFC Editor Contributions:
All RFC Editor Contributions must meet the requirements of Sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6.
By submission of an RFC Editor Contribution, each person actually submitting the RFC Editor Contribution, and each named co- Contributor, is deemed to agree to the following terms and conditions, and to grant the following rights, on his or her own behalf and on behalf of the organization the Contributor represents or is sponsored by (if any) when submitting the RFC Editor Contribution.
(A) to copy, publish, display, and distribute the RFC Editor Contribution as an Internet-Draft,
(B) to prepare or allow the preparation of translations of the RFC into languages other than English.
(C) unless explicitly disallowed in the notices contained in an RFC Editor Contribution (as per Section 5.2 below), to prepare derivative works (other than translations) that are based on or incorporate all or part of the RFC Editor Contribution, or comment upon it. The license to such derivative works not granting the ISOC and the IETF any more rights than the license to the original RFC Editor Contribution, and
(D) to reproduce any trademarks, service marks or trade names which are included in the RFC Editor Contribution solely in connection with the reproduction, distribution or publication of the RFC Editor Contribution and derivative works thereof as permitted by this paragraph. When reproducing RFC Editor Contributions, the IETF will preserve trademark and service mark identifiers used by the Contributor of the RFC Editor Contribution, including (TM) and (R) where appropriate.
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 IETF and its participants from liabilities connected with these documents. The copyright notice also alerts readers that the document is an IETF Document, and that ISOC claims copyright rights to certain aspects of the document, such as its layout, the RFC numbering convention and the prefatory language of the document. This legend is not intended to imply that ISOC has obtained ownership of the IETF Contribution itself, which is retained by the author(s) or remains in the public domain, as applicable.
Each IETF Document must include the required notices described in this Section 5. The required notices are the following:
"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."
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 of the following notices 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 following should be appended to statement 5.2 (a) or 5.2 (b):
"other than to extract section XX as-is for separate use."
Notice 5.2(a) is used if the Contributor intends for the IETF Contribution to be published as an RFC. Notice 5.2(b) is used along with the Publication Limitation in Section 5.3 when the Contributor does not intend for the IETF Contribution to be published as an RFC.
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.
Notice 5.2(a) may be appropriate when republishing standards produced by other (non-IETF) standards organizations, industry consortia or companies. These are typically published as Informational RFCs, and do not require that change control be ceded to the IETF. Basically, documents of this type convey information for the Internet community.
A fuller discussion of the rationale behind these requirements is contained in Section 7.3 below.
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 following notice in the Status of Memo section of the Internet-Draft.
"This document may only be posted in an 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.
(Normally placed at the end of the IETF Document.)
"Copyright © The Internet Society (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."
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.
(Normally placed at the end of the IETF Document after the copyright notice.)
"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."
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.
"Copyright © The Internet Society <year>. This version of this MIB module is part of RFC XXXX; see the RFC itself for full legal notices."
When the MIB or PIB module is the initial version of a module that is to be maintained by the IANA, the following abbreviated notice shall be included:
"Copyright © The Internet Society <year>. The initial
version of this MIB module was published in RFC XXXX; for full
legal notices see the RFC itself. Supplementary information
may be available at:
http://www.ietf.org/copyrights/ianamib.html."
For other types of components than "MIB", substitute "MIB module" with an appropriate identifier. In the case of MIB and PIB modules this statement should be placed in the DESCRIPTION clause of the MODULE-IDENTITY macro.
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.
Since the IETF acts as publisher of Internet Drafts, even for Internet Drafts that are not intended to become part of the Standards Process, the following are required in all such drafts to protect the IETF and its processes. The RFC Editor may require additional notices.
The IETF/ISOC must obtain the right to publish an IETF Contribution as an RFC or an Internet-Draft from the Contributors.
A primary objective of this policy is to obtain from the document authors only the non-exclusive rights that are needed to develop and publish IETF Documents and to use the IETF Contributions in the IETF Standards Process while leaving all other rights with the authors.
The non-exclusive rights that the IETF needs are:
The authors retain all other rights, but cannot withdraw the above rights from the IETF/ISOC.
Because, under the laws of most countries and applicable
international treaties, copyright rights come into existence whenever
a work of authorship is created (but see Section 8 below regarding
public domain documents), and IETF cannot make use of IETF
Contributions if it does not have sufficient rights with respect to
these copyright rights, it is important that the IETF receive
assurances from all Contributors that they have the authority to
grant the IETF the rights that they claim to grant. Without this
assurance, IETF and its participants would run a greater risk of
liability to the owners of these rights.
To this end, IETF asks Contributors to give the assurances in Section 3.4 above. These assurances are requested, however, only to the extent of the Contributor's reasonable and personal knowledge. (See Section 1(l))
The IETF needs to be able to evolve IETF Documents in response to experience gained in the deployment of the technologies described in such IETF Documents, to incorporate developments in research and to react to changing conditions on the Internet and other IP networks. In order to do this the IETF must be able to produce derivatives of its documents; thus the IETF must obtain the right from Contributors to produce derivative works. Note though that the IETF only requires this right for the production of derivative works within the IETF Standards Process. The IETF does not need, nor does it obtain, the right to let derivative works be created outside of the IETF Standards Process other than as noted in Section 3.3 (E).
The right to produce derivative works is required for all IETF standards track documents and for most IETF non-standards track documents. There are two exceptions to this requirement: documents describing proprietary technologies and documents that are republications of the work of other standards organizations.
The right to produce derivative works must be granted in order for an IETF working group to accept an IETF Contribution as a working group document or otherwise work on it. For non-working group IETF Contributions where the Contributor requests publication as a standards track RFC the right to produce derivative works must be granted before the IESG will issue an IETF Last-Call and, for most non-standards track non-working group IETF Contributions, before the IESG will consider the Internet-Draft for publication.
Occasionally a Contributor may not want to grant publication rights or the right to produce derivative works before finding out if an IETF Contribution has been accepted for development in the IETF Standards Process. In these cases the Contributor may include the Derivative Works Limitation described in Section 5.2 and the Publication Limitation described in Section 5.3 in their IETF Contribution. A working group can discuss the Internet-Draft with the aim to decide if it should become a working group document, even though the right to produce derivative works or to publish the IETF Contribution as an RFC has not yet been granted. If the IETF Contribution is accepted for development the Contributor must then resubmit the IETF Contribution without the limitation notices before a working group can formally adopt the IETF Contribution as a working group document.
The IETF has historically encouraged organizations to publish details of their technologies, even when the technologies are proprietary, because understanding how existing technology is being used helps when developing new technology. But organizations that publish information about proprietary technologies are frequently not willing to have the IETF produce revisions of the technologies and then claim that the IETF version is the "new version" of the organization's technology. Organizations that feel this way can specify that an IETF Contribution can be published with the other rights granted under this document but may withhold the right to produce derivative works other than translations. The right to produce translations is required before any IETF Contribution can be published as an RFC to ensure the widest possible distribution of the material in RFCs.
In addition, IETF Documents frequently make normative references to
standards or recommendations developed by other standards
organizations. Since the publications of some standards
organizations are not public documents, it can be quite helpful to
the IETF to republish, with the permission of the other standards
organization, some of these documents as RFCs so that the IETF
community can have open access to them to better understand what they
are referring to. In these cases the RFCs can be published without
the right for the IETF to produce derivative works.
In both of the above cases in which the production of derivative works is excluded, the Contributor must include a special legend in the IETF Contribution, as specified in Section 5.2, in order to notify IETF participants about this restriction.
Contributors may wish to seek trademark or service mark protection on any terms that are coined or used in their IETF Contributions. IETF makes no judgment about the validity of any such trademark rights. However, the IETF requires each Contributor, under the licenses described in Section 3.3 above, to grant IETF a perpetual license to use any such trademarks or service marks solely in exercising its rights to reproduce, publish and modify the IETF Contribution. This license does not authorize any IETF participant to use any trademark or service mark in connection with any product or service offering, but only in the context of IETF Documents and discussions.
Rights and licenses granted to the IETF under this document are granted to all individuals noted in Section 1(a), irrespective of their employment or institutional affiliation. However, these licenses do not extend broadly to the employers, sponsors or institutions of such individuals, nor do they authorize the individuals to exercise any rights outside the specific context of the IETF Standards Process.
Certain documents, including those produced by the U.S. government
and those which are in the public domain, may not be protected by the
same copyright and other legal rights as other documents.
Nevertheless, we ask each Contributor to grant to the IETF the same
rights as he or she would grant, and to make the same
representations, as though the IETF Contribution were protected by
the same legal rights as other documents, and as though the
Contributor could be able to grant these rights. We ask for these
grants and representations only to the extent that the Contribution
may be protected. We believe they are necessary to protect the ISOC,
the IETF, the IETF Standards Process and all IETF participants, and
also because the IETF does not have the resources or wherewithal to
make any independent investigation as to the actual proprietary
status of any document submitted to it.
This memo relates to IETF process, not any particular technology. There are security considerations when adopting any technology, but there are no known issues of security with IETF Contribution rights policies.
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC2028] Hovey, R. and S. Bradner, "The Organizations Involved in the IETF Standards Process", BCP 11, RFC 2028, October 1996.
[RFC3979] Bradner, S., Ed, "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology", BCP 79, RFC 3979, March 2005.
[Berne] "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and
Artistic Work",
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/trtdocs/en/wo/wo001en.htm
The editor would like to acknowledge the help of the IETF IPR Working Group and, in particular the help of Jorge Contreras of Hale and Dorr for his careful legal reviews of this and other IETF IPR-related and process documents. The editor would also like to acknowledge the extensive help John Klensin provided during the development of the document.
Scott Bradner
Harvard University
29 Oxford St.
Cambridge MA, 02138
Phone: +1 617 495 3864
EMail: sob@harvard.edu
Copyright © The Internet Society (2005).
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.
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
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.
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society.