Re: AI disclosure [was: AI slop "contributions" to IETF working groups]

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 12-Feb-26 03:36, Michael Richardson wrote:
> 
> John Levine <[e-mail]> wrote:
>      > It appears that Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> said:
>      >> For documents that may end up as contractual requirements or as
>      >> footballs in intellectual property disputes, I think we have to be
>      >> asking for disclosure. I am definitely not a lawyer but I think that
>      >> the legal status of ideas originated by an AI is still very
>      >> unclear. It's rather like claiming that my cat invented a better
>      >> mousetrap - who owns the IPR, and who is to blame when the mousetrap
>      >> breaks?
> 
>      > In the United States, the answer is nobody.  US courts have held that
>      > only people can create copyrighted or patented material, not robots or
>      > monkeys.*
> 
> So, if IETF (Trust) can't own/license a copyright on an I-D/RFC produced like
> that, then I don't think it can pass NoteWell.

I don't think that's a problem. RFC 8179 has a fairly clear definition:

>    d. "Contributor": an individual submitting a Contribution

IANAL, but any court would surely interpret that to mean a natural person.
Then RFC 5378 says:

> 5.3.  Rights Granted by Contributors to the 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 grant a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive,
>    royalty-free, world-wide, sublicensable right and license to the IETF
>    Trust under all such copyrights and other rights in the Contribution:

Because of the "To the extent that..." clause, it doesn't matter if
there is actually no copyright on the material. If there's no copyright,
the Trust a.k.a. IPMC  doesn't need a license anyway.

If I'm wrong, draft-bradner-gen-ipmc-contributor-rights creates the
opportunity to fix it.

     Brian