Royalty payments for use of ISO codes

[Todd Boyle <tboyle@rosehill.net>]

Regarding http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2003-09-20-a.html (excerpt below)
ISO is "clarifying" that they expect payment for commercial use of 3166, 
639 etc.
Can anybody tell us whether the OASIS or UN/CEFACT are unable to speak
against these royalties, within the terms of their MOU with ISO?
http://xml.coverpages.org/MOU-OASIS-200202.html

If *any* player gains a monopoly position, then in due course,
they will end up extracting the entire economic gain of the business
process, and commoditize everybody else.  --lao tzu

SMEs want a common horizontal vocabulary and its 2003, what's taking so long?

TOdd Boyle CPA http://www.ledgerism.net/
  "... 3 minutes to midnight, on the RICO lawsuit clock?  "


------------------- QUOTED MATERIAL FOLLOWS

Standards Organizations Express Concern About Royalty Fees for ISO Codes.

Contents

* Summary
* Introduction
* Background on ISO's "Clarification" Concerning Royalty Payments
* W3C Letter to ISO President Regarding Usage Fees for ISO Codes
* Public Position of the Unicode Technical Committee
* Letter from the INCITS Executive Board to the ANSI ICO Council
* The Bigger Picture
* Principal References

Summary

W3C, the Unicode Technical Committee, and INCITS (International
Committee for Information Technology Standards) have recently
published statements of concern about ISO's interpretation of law
and policy on the collection of royalty payments for the use of
ISO codes. The data elements in question involve several ISO
standards that are often referenced in Internet infrastructure
specifications and protocols, and code lists that are widely
implemented in language-sensitive text processing software. The
lists include ISO 639 'Codes for the representation of names of
languages', ISO 3166 'Codes for the representation of names of
countries and their subdivisions', and ISO 4217 'Codes for the
representation of currencies and funds'. ISO has clarified that
"generally, software developers or commercial resellers requesting
permission to embed the data elements contained in an ISO Code in
their products for resale will be asked to purchase the Code in
electronic format and pay either an annual fee or a one-time fee
and any applicable maintenance fees required." The letters from
W3C, UTC, and INCITS have appealed to ISO and ANSI for reversal of
their interpretation and policy.

[continued at http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2003-09-20-a.html ]