RE: [cni] [CNI-COPYRIGHT] copyright on standards

Many apologies. I shouldn't try to answer posts about the situation in countries other than my own...

I have just realised that the body to which I meant to refer in my previous reply was ANSI, not NISO; and a little further research shows that both of these are independent, non-governmental organisations as well.

But to continue my ill-advised foray, it seems to me that copyright can subsist in the standards documents, as literary works; but that it cannot be an infringement of that copyright to produce an article which complies with the standard, nor can the standards bodies use copyright law to claim any monopoly on the process of cerfiying conformance with the standards.

Edward Barrow
New Media Copyright Consultant
http://www.copyweb.co.uk/
***Important: see http://www.copyweb.co.uk/email.htm for information about the legal status of this email ***

On Wednesday, April 16, 2003 4:11 AM, Freya Anderson [SMTP:freya_anderson[_at_]eed.state.ak.us] wrote:
> Hello all~
>
> Someone recently told me that standards were considered (US) government
> documents, and as such do not have copyright protection. I was under the
> impression that most standards were not created by government work, that
> they were not considered government documents for copyright purposes, and
> that clearance was necessary for copying. 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?
>
> Thanks!
> Freya Anderson
> ILL Librarian ~around the clock reference service~
> Alaska State Library http://library.state.ak.us
> P.O. Box 110571
> Juneau, AK 99811
> Phone: 907-465-2988, Fax: 907-465-2665
> E-mail: freya_anderson[_at_]eed.state.ak.us, ILL email:
> aslill[_at_]eed.state.ak.us
> OCLC - ALK Member: LVIS, BCR, BCR/Amigos Reciprocal Agreements
>
>
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<https://mail2.cni.org/Lists/CNI-COPYRIGHT/> Received on Wed Apr 16 2003 - 18:43:50 GMT