Who exactly owns the copyright and under what conditions was it
established?
The WHATWG spec claims:
© Copyright 2004-2010 Apple Computer, Inc., Mozilla Foundation, and
Opera Software ASA.
You are granted a license to use, reproduce and create derivative
works of this document.
But that seems false to me. If Ian has a standard contract with
Google, then his work related production is work for hire and thus
belongs to Google. Alternatively, it could belong to Ian. That seems
the clearest.
The W3C spec:
Copyright © 2010 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C
liability, trademark and document use rules apply.
The text of this specification is also available in the WHATWG Web
Applications 1.0 specification, under a license that permits reuse of
the specification text.
Which is it? Unless Apple Computer, Inc., Mozilla Foundation, and
Opera Software ASA have transferred ownership, they remain the owners
(though they grant a liberal license, of course). If there are bits
that belong to the W3C, shouldn't *all* the copyright owners be listed?
The W3C does not have automatic transfer of copyright:
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/IPR-FAQ-20000620.html#holds
Who holds the copyright on W3C documents?
The original author of the document. Many documents are created by the
W3C and W3C consequently holds the copyright. Owners who allow their
works to be published on the W3C site retain the copyright, but agree
to the W3C license for the redistribution of those materials from our
site.
"Created by the W3C" has to mean "Created by employee's of the member
institutions of the W3C under normal work-for-hire rules." At least,
afaict.
Thus, either Apple, Mozilla, Opera, and maybe Google own it, or Ian
Hickson does. I don't see a likely scenario where the W3C does.
I don't think the mere mistaken putting of an erroneous copyright
notice constitutes change in ownership. It seems a bit confusing,
though. And easily remedied.
Cheers,
Bijan.
