Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!bloom-beacon!bu.edu!bu-cs!snorkelwacker!think!samsung!umich!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pacbell!pbhyg!balavi
From: balavi@PacBell.COM (Behzad Alavi)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: ISO 639
Message-ID: <1938@pbhyg.PacBell.COM>
Date: 8 Feb 90 16:19:03 GMT
References: <3109@paperboy.OSF.ORG> <1091@tuminfo1.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de>
Reply-To: balavi@PacBell.COM (Behzad Alavi)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 40

>In article <3109@paperboy.OSF.ORG> martin@osf.org (Sandra Martin) writes:
>
>#I'm looking for a copy of ISO 639, which apparently lists standard
>#names for natural languages. I contacted ANSI, but they're currently
>#out of stock, so it will take about four weeks to get a copy.
>#

           OMNICOM (Tel: 1-800-OMN-ICOM, or 1-800-666-4266)
               is authorized to distribute ISO/IEC standards.

           One minor problem that I've had with such documents
           is the "COPY QUALITY" of distributed material.  In
           a specific case it was a copy-of-a-copy that was
           reduced in size to fit two pages in one.  As a result it
           was very hard and undesirable to read.

>#***DISCLAIMER:	I don't know whether it's considered ethical to get 
>#		a "free" copy of an ISO standard this way. If it's
>#		not ethical, please disregard this request.

           Somebody had correctly pointed out whether it is 
           EVEN ETHICAL for the International Standards to be
           copyrighted in the first place!

           Copyrights seem to limit the scope of distribution
           and usage, which are apparently not what International
           Standards were designed to do.

           I am interested to hear more on this topic.  Of course
           in the U.S., ANSI is a PRIVATE agency. That means it 
           has as much right as any other business entity to collect
           royalties, copyrights, etc. for any reason.  But
           what about ISO/IEC, etc.  What is the justification
           for "Copyrights" on those documents?

-- 
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