Re: Rights in early RFCs

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

> On Jun 14, 2019, at 7:22 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On 15-Jun-19 12:38, Joe Touch wrote:
>> FWIW, IANAL but the agreements below affect only the editing and publication functions of ISI during the period indicated, which (AFAICT) was after Jon died.
> 
> No, pre-October 1998 is specifically included in the first one. The two are slightly different for reasons that various lawyers no doubt explained at the time.

Agreed; I had overlooked that.

> 
>> I.e, this refers to the RFC Editor contributions. It does not appear (again, IANAL) to affect either previous works or even RFC work done by others during that period (granted that the ISOC started adding copyright statements to RFCs somewhere in that time too).
> 
> It applies to all rights that ISI *might have had*, which is all they could offer.

It appears to apply only to products of the RFC Editor contract. E.g., RFC1700 and the like - reports of the RFC Editor. It would not necessarily apply to other RFCs - just because something was an RFC doesn’t mean it was performed under that contract. I wrote RFCs at ISI during that time under other contracts that were published in this period, e.g, RFC 1810, that would not be covered by this transfer.

> It doesn't apply to any rights that third parties might have had, obviously. So it is the maximum that ISI could offer, which is all we could ask for. (IANAL, but I was in the discussion loop with the Trust's lawyer.)

I’m not sure what it actually would cover - as you note, it transfers USC’s rights (ISI isn’t a legal entity). But contracts never established either USC or the government as copyright holders - at USC, the author retains their own copyright individually. It was never asserted as transferred to the USC.  The most our government contracts ever required was “free use” by the government, e.g,, if the gov paid once, they didn’t have to pay again.

So it *might* cover deliverables in the RFC Editor contract - e.g., the reports above. At best, IMO.

> That's why the "Contributor Non-Exclusive Document License" was invented, and why it's unfortunate that it doesn't seem to have been followed up for the important early RFCs.

When it was established, authors were contacted and asked to participate. Not everyone did, though, and, as you note, for those who passed, you’d probably have to track down heirs.

Joe