

Should standards be copyirghted? - techdog
http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/04/should-standards-be-copyrighted.html

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cduan
Contrary to the article's suggestion, retaining copyright does "prevent
bastardization of the standard by someone else who tries to publish a
different version of it." One of the exclusive rights of copyright is the
right to make derivative works (and to foreclose others from doing so).

The article claims that copyright is "designed to defeat" wide dissemination
of standards. The author would be well-advised to reconsider this in light of
open-source licenses such as the GPL, which _rely_ on copyright protection to
ensure wide dissemination of works through their viral mechanisms.

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eli
In the US, documents you write are generally considered copyrighted whether
you put a copyright notice on them or not.

If you want to make a document public, it's a pretty good idea to claim the
copyright and then release it under a very permissive license.

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Hoff
Having been in attendance at various IETF committee meetings over the years, a
standards committee meeting is a meeting that most everyone involved in
related areas of nerdery should attend and experience. At least once. But
that's another discussion.

Copyrights on standards documents can be permissive or restrictive, and can
help or can hinder the acceptance of a standard. This is no different than
copyrights explicitly or implicitly present on other documents. Having
explicit copyright statements is almost always better than having no explicit
copyrights; you know where you stand with respect to the contents of the
document.

