Clarification of Derivative Works Restrictions

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶

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This Internet-Draft will expire on 6 February 2027.¶

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

This document updates Rights Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust [RFC5378] in order to clarify and limit which contributions may include a restriction on derivative rights.¶

2. Conventions and Definitions

This document uses the terminology defined in [RFC5378].¶

3. Derivative Works

Section 1 of [RFC5378] defines "Contribution", a "Contributor" and "IETF Documents". Sections 5.3 and 6 of RFC 5378 describe an optional mechanism for a Contributor to limit derivative works rights with a notice in the Contribution.¶

This optional mechanism has sometimes been misconstrued as applying to all Contributions. Using this mechanism outside of specifications, for example, in electronic mail, makes it difficult for people to respond and inhibits collaboration. This behavior impedes the very idea of collaborating about the Internet over the Internet. The IESG has previously issued a statement on this topic [IESG-DERIV].¶

This document clarifies with normative effect that RFC 5378 permits the use of this mechanism only for the text of IETF Documents, i.e., RFCs or Internet-Drafts that are used in the IETF Standards Process.¶

Question for legal review: Which of the following two alternative sentences would be more effective and less problematic for participants?¶

Version 1: Derivative works restrictions may not be applied to other Contributions, such as but not limited to public online IETF fora as defined in [RFC9945], appeals, minutes, or audio or video recordings of IETF meetings.¶

Version 2: Derivative works restrictions attached to other Contributions, such as but not limited to public online IETF fora as defined in [RFC9945], appeals, minutes, or audio or video recordings of IETF meetings, have no validity and should be ignored by all IETF participants.¶

All other rights Contributors provide to the IETF Trust/ICMP [RFC5378] remain in place.¶

4. Security Considerations

This document has no direct impact on Internet security.¶

5. IANA Considerations

This document has no IANA actions.¶

6. References

Appendix A. Change Log [RFC Editor, please remove]

Acknowledgements

Helpful comments were made by Jay Daley, Roman Danyliw, Stephen Farrell, Joel Halpern, Christian Huitema, John Klensin, Eliot Lear, John Levine, Rich Salz, Paul Wouters, ...¶

Authors' Addresses