[Techspec] Re: RFC Author Count and IPR

Sam:

We need a way to track the people that have copyright interest.  I 
had always assumed this was the author list.  If we are going to 
continue to limit the author count to five people, then there needs 
to be a place where the people with copyright interest are listed in 
the document.  This is the reason that I included the techspec mail 
list on my posting.

Russ

At 02:06 PM 5/24/2006, Sam Hartman wrote:
> >>>>> "Russ" == Russ Housley <housley@vigilsec.com> writes:
>
>     Russ> I am concerned that the current RFC Editor practice that
>     Russ> limits the number of authors is in conflict with the IETF
>     Russ> IPR policies.  The RFC Editor currently limits the author
>     Russ> count to five people.  Recent IPR WG discussions make it
>     Russ> clear to me that authors retain significant copyright.
>
>[There is this concept in US copyright law called a joint work.  I'm
>ignoring that concept for the moment basically because I don't
>understand how it applies to either software or text developed using
>an open process.  As far as I can tell, no one else understands it
>either.  Please be aware that this may be a huge gap in my advice.]
>
>So, here we have a conflicting definitions problem.
>
>The author of a work retains the copyright interest.  That's true if
>if I'm listed as an author or not.
>
>If I write text and do not assign the copyright to someone, I retain
>copyright interest in that text.
>
>So the sixth person still owns the copyright interest in the text they
>write even if they are not listed.
>
>That means if you have unlisted authors who have contributed
>significant chunks of text, you still need to get their clearance to
>do anything interesting with that text.

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