Lloyd Wood writes:
> all participants are aware of the position on copyright
No, it isn't plausible that most IETF participants are aware of IETF's
copyright grab.
It should be possible to collect data on this by adding the following
question to the next IETF-wide survey: "Did you know before now that,
for any email you send to any IETF mailing list, even if you're merely
commenting and not volunteering text for any IETF standards, IETF claims
the right to modify your text in any way it wants, publish the modified
text, misattribute to you things you didn't write, remove credit for
things you did write, feed your text to AI engines for manipulation,
and collect money for all of this, without asking you for any further
permission, _unless_ your email invokes the magic incantation from the
buried Legend Instructions that IETF Chairs don't even know exist, a
magic incantation that's allowed by IETF rules because IETF doesn't in
fact need the rights that it's grabbing by default?"
I'm sure that having IETF LLC ask this question would simultaneously (1)
demonstrate that many people were unaware of this and (2) increase
awareness, triggering far more opt-outs than the current situation of
only occasional opt-outs. I'm reminded of a paragraph from
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/smarter-privacy-rules-what-look-what-avoid
regarding another situation where participants weren't actually told
what's going on: "Above all, data usage should be 'opt-in' by default,
not 'opt-out,' meaning that users' data is not collected or shared
unless a user has explicitly authorized it. If a social network needs
user data to offer a functionality that its users actually want, then it
should not have to resort to deception to get them to provide it."
> https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well/
> and BCP 78 are cited by the chairs in their introductory slides to
> every workgroup meeting
"Cited" falls far short of _actually notifying people of a copyright
grab_. The survey question above, sent separately to all existing and
new IETF participants along with a mechanism to check they really saw
it, would be _actual_ notification.
But this is in any case missing the point. IETF's introduction---
https://web.archive.org/web/20250603130154/https://www.ietf.org/about/introduction/
---says "Anyone can participate by signing up to a working group mailing
list". It also says that all "official work" of a WG is carried out on
the WG's mailing list.
I joined the IETF TLS mailing list in April 1999. There _was_ a note
about copyright buried in the lengthy welcome message for that list, but
what that note says is radically different from a copyright grab:
"Contributions to the IETF-TLS Working Group mailing lists imply license
for the list to distribute these contributions to other members of the
list and for the list to store the material in an archive accessible to
the general public. However, in all other respects the author continues
to control the copyright of each contribution."
Looking at the welcome message for an IETF WG list that I joined much
more recently (May 2025), namely the MODPOD list, I see nothing
whatsoever about a copyright grab: "Welcome to the 'Mod-discuss' mailing
list! To post to this list, send your message to: [email protected]
You can unsubscribe or make adjustments to your options via email by
sending a message to: [email protected] with the word 'help'
in the subject or body (don't include the quotes), and you will get back
a message with instructions. You will need your password to change your
options, but for security purposes, this password is not included here.
If you have forgotten your password you will need to reset it via the
web UI." That's the complete text, minus some line breaks.
> I think your continued comments would be more convincing if they were
> more truthful.
If you actually understood the copyright grab before, good for you, but
please try to keep in mind that your experience working for Cisco for a
decade gives you a different perspective on IETF from most people.
---D. J. Bernstein
P.S. For readers bumping into this message who haven't seen the context:
Please see https://blog.cr.yp.to/20251004-weakened.html to understand
what's actually going on here.
===== NOTICES REGARDING IETF =====
It has come to my attention that IETF LLC believes that anyone filing a
comment, objection, or appeal is engaging in a copyright giveaway by
default, for example allowing IETF LLC to feed that material into AI
systems for manipulation. Specifically, IETF LLC views any such material
as a "Contribution", and believes that WG chairs, IESG, and other IETF
LLC agents are free to modify the material "unless explicitly disallowed
in the notices contained in a Contribution (in the form specified by the
Legend Instructions)". I am hereby explicitly disallowing such
modifications. Regarding "form", my understanding is that "Legend
Instructions" currently refers to the portion of
https://web.archive.org/web/20250306221446/https://trustee.ietf.org/wp-content/uploads/Corrected-TLP-5.0-legal-provsions.pdf
saying that the situation that "the Contributor does not wish to allow
modifications nor to allow publication as an RFC" must be expressed in
the following form: "This document may not be modified, and derivative
works of it may not be created, and it may not be published except as an
Internet-Draft". That expression hereby applies to this message.
I'm fine with redistribution of copies of this message. There are no
confidentiality restrictions on this message. The issue here is with
modifications, not with dissemination.
For other people concerned about what IETF LLC is doing: Feel free to
copy these notices into your own messages. If you're preparing text for
an IETF standard, it's legitimate for IETF LLC to insist on being
allowed to modify the text; but if you're just filing comments then
there's no reason for this.
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