Re: copyright on standards

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, Freya Anderson <freya_anderson[_at_]eed.state.ak.us> wrote:
>
> .... Looking at an IEEE standard, I
> see that it has copyright notices all over it, and that it is possible to
> obtain clearance through the Copyright Clearance Center.
>
> Could someone clarify for me whether or not standards are generally
> copyrightable?

Being a copyright minimalist, I think that they are totally wrong to claim copyright over the expressions that are very close to the ideas behind the expressions. Secondly, they cannot claim copyright over procedure, process, system, method of operation, and principle.

That IEEE and many other organizations including but not limited to W3C disregard the U.S. Copyright Law greatly puzzles me. (I am a programmer and I read standards occasionally. Many portions in the standards are clearly in the public domain.) My guess is that they really want to have 100% control over how people use their standards and to get money from copies to support themselves. They could have used trademark instead of copyright to maintain the integrity in their standards. That is my perspective. I could be wholly or partially wrong.

I don't know offhand of any court case that specifically addresses the standard. The ongoing case in _Veeck v. SBCCI_ may be relevant to the question you asked.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>
http://www.boycottcopyright.com

Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the land of the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 5,738

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain. Received on Wed Apr 16 2003 - 18:43:50 GMT