Ken:
I saw in today’s meeting minutes your question to me regarding the correct approach to citing online resources.
Each and every TC member is responsible for what they ‘bring to the table’ in whatever form as a ‘contribution’:
- If it is their own material, or their organization’s, they have to submit the content in line with the TC’s IPR mode and the main OASIS rules of the game;
If it is some third party’s material, they have to ensure that they – individually – secure the rights to use and reference the material, specifically that it is intended not for personal use but for use within a wider community effort
For example, if we wanted to use the famous diagram in IEEE1471, I (or some other editor or TC member) would need to seek permission from IEEE to reproduce the diagram for the purposes of inclusion in a public OASIS work product. Having secured that right, I add the diagram to the draft with the requisite ‘reproduced with kind permission of…’. That’s a simple and standard copyright issue, where the original material states that it is copyrighted and/or states explicitly its terms of use, whatever the provenance of the material, printed or online.
Most legal systems (but not all) also allow that anyone can *reference* any publicly accessible URL (not URI) without being considered to have infringed copyright, provided no content of the re-referenced URL is actually included in the target work (many lawyers are having fun with html frames, client side includes, etc – their battle, not mine).
Simply answer:
If a work carries no copyright notice then caveat emptor and proceed with caution. ‘Fair use’ rules are very different across the world, so care is required.
If there is a copyright or usage notice then seek permission – absence of a reply or explicit refusal after ‘reasonable efforts’ have been made to secure approval, is considered as implied consent to use.
In all cases, the responsibility lies with the TC member submitting the material in line with the OASIS member agreement.
Cheers,
Peter
Peter F Brown
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