Re: **Take note** W3C changes its copyright notice in 2023

Dear all,

Further to feedback and internal discussion, we made the last minute change to remove “Inc.” from the copyright statement that will apply to /TR new docs after January 2023.

Rationale: There is no legal requirement that the legal structure of the Consortium needs to appear in the copyright statement, and since several people internally and externally shared with us a worry that using “Inc.” or “Incorporated” might mislead people or trigger inadequate associations. Because we will continue to develop web standards and specifications according to the same Process Document, there is no need to create any confusion, so “Inc.” was removed from the copyright notice that will apply to new documents in 2023 after the grace period.

All of the requirements and guidelines for W3C specifications publication are part of “PubRules” which our Webmaster Denis has already updated. Here is the section on copyright:
  https://www.w3.org/pubrules/doc/rules/?profile=WD#copyright

Tab, Denis will (if he hasn’t already) take care of updating the pull request for Bikeshed.

Happy new year, everyone!

Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications


> On Mon, 12 Dec 2022 16:24:40 -0500, Philippe Le Hegaret wrote:
> 
> All,
> 
> The copyright notice of W3C will become, starting January 1st 2023:
> [[
> <p class="copyright"><a 
> href="
> https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright
> ">Copyright</a> 
> © 2023 <a href="
> https://www.w3.org/
> "> World Wide Web Consortium, 
> Inc.</a>. W3C<sup>®</sup> <a 
> href="
> https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Legal_Disclaimer
> ">liability</a>, 
> <a 
> href="
> https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#W3C_Trademarks
> ">trademark</a> 
> and <a 
> href="
> https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software
> ">permissive 
> document license</a> rules apply.</p>
> ]]
> 
> 
> Documents published in 
> https://www.w3.org/TR
>  will have one month to 
> update the copyright notice in publication. We will start rejecting 
> documents with the improper notice after January 2023.
> 
> If you use respec or bikeshed, those tools should take care of this for 
> you. Make sure to update them before the end of January if you have a 
> local copy.
> 
> Associated pull requests:
> Respec:
>    
> https://github.com/w3c/respec/pull/4332
> 
> Bikeshed:
>   
> https://github.com/tabatkins/bikeshed-boilerplate/pull/30
> 
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Philippe

--
Coralie Mercier  -  Head of W3C Marketing & Communications 
mailto:coralie@w3.org - https://www.w3.org/People/Coralie/

Received on Tuesday, 3 January 2023 13:21:59 UTC