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