--On Saturday, January 24, 2009 10:07 -0500 Dave Nelson
<d.b.nelson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> John C. Klensin writes ...
>
>> And, while IANAL, my understanding from what we've been told
>> repeatedly is that "fair use exemption" is a US concept, so
>> your sentence should stop after "significant re-use of
>> material"
>
> So authors of scholarly papers in other countries can't
> lawfully quote and cite other such works? I am continually
> surprised by new knowledge -- that makes life interesting --
> but I find this bit particularly surprising, not to say
> incredible.
The point is that different countries have different rules,
different names for the rules, and different criteria. To pick
up on your example, some even have special rules for scholarly
papers. I gather others focus on context and intent with
less concern about volume. "Fair use", at least as it gets
thrown around the IETF, is typically a reference to a
US-specific story.
Beyond that, you should probably consult your favorite lawyer.
> If "fair use" does not apply, then does "significant" need to
> be come "any"? One of the elements of fair use is the volume
> of quoted material -- so what now defines "significant"?
If it comes to that, a judge. After the fact and on a
case-by-case basis.
With the understanding that this takes us into exactly the part
of the room that I think has no floor, if you want to infer that
removing a more-or-less clear "fair use" criterion turns
"significant" into "any", you are free to do so. I couldn't
possibly say that.
On the other hand, if one avoids the legal theorizing and
concentrates on the issue, there are, IMO, two important things
to focus on:
* The current and former policies focus on getting people to
give the IETF (and IETF Trust) whatever rights they need, not on
making would-be users of text spend energy trying to figure out
what they can and cannot appropriate without those rights. If
a subsequent author knows that she has the rights by a more or
less explicit grant, what could be used without them is a
non-issue. In that regard, the difference between 5378 and
3978 is that 5378 considerably broadened the set of rights the
IETF requires that it obtain.
* This debate, and the workaround, are really about what rights
I have to claim that I have, or have obtained, to give to the
IETF. The workaround and whatever corner it gets us into avoid
requiring a document author to take responsibility either for
gathering new permissions from people who may be inaccessible or
for accurately determining who might consider themselves a
significant enough contributor to a document to be relevant for
copyright purposes.
john
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