Re: IPR Questions Raised by Sam Hartman at the IETF 73 Plenary

[Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org>]

IETF Chair <chair at ietf.org> writes:

> SAM'S QUESTION
>
> What does a contributor do in the situation when then want to build on an
> older work that was contributed prior to RFC 5378?
>
> In short, the contributor must obtain the additional rights from the
> original contributor.

To my knowledge, there has never been a requirement to document all
copyright holders of material in documents approved under RFC 2026 or
RFC 3978.  There is wording that require "all major contributors" to be
mentioned, but it seems possible that some part of a document is
copyrightable but not be a major contribution.

So, how would you actually know which old contributors to contact?

Any what if the contributor is deceased?

It would be very useful if the IAOC/Trust develop, together with legal
aid, guiding instructions for this situation.  It would answer the
common questions.  It seems applicable to a lot of work that will happen
in the next 5 years: updating any RFC issues prior to RFC 5378.

/Simon
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