On 2023-12-08 11:58, Brooks Harris via tz wrote:
anything from IERS must be public domain, isn't it? How is it not?
It’s published in France and French law does not recognize the US notion of public domain. The French “domaine public” is more restrictive than the US notion, and as I understand things if published in France the file cannot be domaine public anyway; that can happen only 70 years after publication. The IERS version lacks a copyright notice, and it’s not clear who holds the copyright or under what terms TZDB could legally reproduce the file. The copyright holder might be the IERS, the Paris Observatory, Paris Sciences et Lettres University, the Ministry of National Education, or some other body. A while ago I asked for a proper copyright notice to be added, to clarify rights and establish permissions, but this has not gotten anywhere presumably because the people in charge of the IERS version are busy and don’t think this is important. Given the legal uncertainty it’s safer for TZDB to not copy the IERS version.