Re: legal consultation (was List moderator action)

[John Levine <[e-mail]>]

It appears that Simon Josefsson  <[e-mail]> said:
>-=-=-=-=-=-
>
>Rob Sayre <[e-mail]> writes:
>
>> Hi, I wrote it up:
>>
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-sayre-gendispatch-derivative/
>
>Thanks for writing that.
>
>I don't think it make sense to permit I-D's to prohibit derivative works
>and at the same time forbid presentation or e-mail posts about the I-D
>to use the same clause. ...

RFC 5378 lists the two specific situations where I-D's can
forbid derivatives:

     There are two exceptions to this requirement: documents
   describing proprietary technologies and documents that are
   republications of the work of other standards organizations.

E-mail messages fit into neither of these categories. Putting on my
dread Junior Lawyer hat, I agree with Joel that mail messages arguing
about a draft are unlikely to be considered derivative works, even if
they quote bits of the original document. If nonetheless a court
thought that they were derivative, the fair use defense would apply. 

If someone tried to sue to enforce no-derivatives in an e-mail, I
think it is implausible that they would win, but even if you win a
copyright suit you are typically out tens of thousands of dollars (in
US courts each party pays their own costs), so the chilling effect is
real.

R's,
John