Title: ISO codes and RAND
During the WS-Trans OASIS committee, Arle copied us on
the ISO proposal to charge royalties to use ISO standards.
INCITS/L2 has issued the statement below, strongly
recommending against the proposal. Kathy (committee chair) also recommended that
we issue a strong message against it.
Arle/Peter/Tony, I would like to ask that we
issue a similiar resolution from each standard groups or have a
combined
From: Cathy Wissink
Sent: Saturday,
September 06, 2003 4:18 PM
To: Gerard Cattin des
Bois
Subject: RE: [trans-ws] ISO codes and RAND
Yes, this is a known problem.
INCITS/L2 (the US committee for character sets and internationalization, which I
chair) took the following resolution at the last meeting:
<snip>
Regarding ISO royalties (reference INCITS document
in031008):
Resolved: With reference to the proposal by ISO’s CPSG to charge fees for the
use of ISO codes: ISO infrastructure standards such as 3166, 4217 and 639 MUST be royalty free. The negative
consequences of charging royalties would be severe, for
example:
1.
Disincentive for companies to contribute to ISO
standards development;
2.
Strong incentive to avoid using or referencing ISO
standards by software developers or commercial
resellers;
3.
It would promote the development and use of alternative,
royalty-free standards;
4.
Disincentive for organizations which have been
harmonizing their alternative standards with ISO
standards.
Moreover, many of these ISO standards are
themselves based on contributions from other sources or not distinguishable from
pre-existing data, and charging royalties for the use of this data may expose
ISO itself to debates over intellectual property rights and financial
liability. Even the
discussion of this issue casts a cloud over future use of ISO standards in the
IT environment.
</snip>
The impact for the industry could be huge, *if* this
happens. I urge you to get the word out and have any formal organizations
you work with take a position on this and send it through their channels to
their national standards setting organizations and ISO.
Cathy
From: Gerard Cattin des Bois
Sent: Thu
9/4/2003 1:48 PM
To: Cathy Wissink
Subject: FW: [trans-ws]
ISO codes and RAND
In my committe meeting for web services dealing with
translation exchange between vendors and software subscribers, the following
letter was sent to LISA, and raises some concerns regarding licencing fees for
using country codes from ISO 3166.
See mail below.
Are you aware of this? and what is the impact for us
and for the industry in general?
-Gérard
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From: Arle Lommel [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 8:46 AM
To:
Subject: [trans-ws] ISO codes and
RAND
This is the
information I have on this topic. I don't know a whole lot
more.
-Arle
-----Original
Message-----
From: Jennifer DeCamp [mailto:]
Sent:
Tuesday, September 02, 2003 5:46 PM
To: Michael
Anobile
Subject: Letter from
INCITS
in031008
August 1,
2003
INCITS CONTRIBUTION TO ANSI CONCERNING THE
AVAILABILITY OF ISO CODES
FROM: INCITS
Executive Board
SUBJECT: Availability of ISO
Codes
INCITS wishes to express its concern over recent positions
taken by ANSI and by the ISO CPSG with respect to ISO 3166, ISO 4217 and
ISO 639, in particular ISO 3166, Country Codes. In brief, the issue
is whether ANSI or other ISO national bodies, or ISO itself, should charge
royalty fees for the use of the standard, in addition to a standard
copyright fee for purchase or reproduction of the standard. In
ANSI's on-line newsletter for May 2003, ANSI reported that:
"The CPSG also
discussed the ISO 3166 country codes, ISO 4217 currencycodes, and ISO
639 language codes and proposed clarifications for their distribution.
Noting the necessity for a number of ISO standards to be published
as databases, the CPSG asked that the Secretary General recommend a
consideration of the publciation of some ISO standards as such, and
promoted studying related pricing, delivery, and maintenance
issues.
"CPSG
Recommendation: CPSG considered the ambiguity between reproducing
of data elements from ISO 3166, 4217 and 6349 for the purpose of
implementation and for commercial exploitation and proposed the
following clarifications:
The reproduction of the
full standard shall follow the normal copyright rules
No copyright fee shall
be charged for the reproduction of the 2 digit codes of ISO 3166, 4217
and 639 lists in books, magazines, acadeic work and for internal use
by companies, institutes and organization
Software developers or
commercial resellers requesting permission to embed ISO codes in their
products for resale will be asked to purchase each code in electronic
format and pay either an annual fee or a one time fee and any
applicable maintenance fees required (to be further discussed with
CPSG by correspondence)"
The final point has been
amplified by ANSI in a summary on use of the ISO codes as:
"Companies who
develop software products for sale to other parties are adding value to
their products by including the data elements from an ISO Code in proper
applications ...via the sale of the product the developing company is
not only being compensated for its direct efforts to incorporate the ISO
Codes in apropriate locations but it is also being compensated for trhe
value the ISO Codes have added to its product. The ISO community should
also be compensated for providing the intellectual property required to
incorporate the value-added features into the
product."
While this raises many debatable
issues, INCITS' overriding concern is that this represents a radical
departure from established practice with respect to standards. We
are not concerned here with the fees collected by many standards setting
organizations for purchasing copies of standards. Rather, the
proposal being discussed would in effect place a charge upon
implementing a standard by enforcing a fee associated with each
copy of a product built according to or incorporating the standard.
In essence, therefore, this charges users of a standard, be they
direct (in the case of manufacturers) or indirect (in the case of product
consumers) to actually use the standard.
In INCITS' opinion
this would constitute a strong disincentive for manufacturers,
large consumers and consumer groups to develop standards within standards
organizations which might adopt this process or to subsequently make use
of the standards in their products and services. Standards
participants, whether manufacturers, consumers, government agencies or
other entities, bring their own information to the standards development
process so that they can share in the resultant standard. In other
words, standards participants have the expectation that in exchange for
their "valuable and volunteer" contributions, they will be able to "use"
the fruits of their consensus-building process without further
hindrance.
In the Information Technology industry, where many
consortia and alternative standards-setting models to the formal standards
development process already flourish, INCITS believes that the imposition
of such usage fees would be likely to drive participation in standards
development away from organizations which implement them. At the very
least standards participants would probably adjust their priorities for
involvement as a result.
Accordingly, INCITS requests the ANSI ICO
Council to
Adopt a position that
fees for using the contents of standards, as opposed to fees for the
purchase of the standards themselves, is inappropriate
Ensure that ANSI does not
go forward with such a policy
Take this issue forward
to ISO Council in the strongest possible terms to dissuade ISO and its
members from this approach and from ISO policy
------ End of Forwarded
Message
