W3C Objects To Royalties On ISO Country Codes

[Michael Everson]

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/09/20/227242.shtml?tid=126&tid=95&tid=98&tid=99

>"Tim Berners-Lee has sent a letter of concern to the president of 
>ISO about the idea of collecting royalties on...guess what... ISO 
>language and country codes! According to the letter, the ISO 
>Commercial Policies Steering Group is proposing a royalty on 
>commercial use of ISO language, country and currency codes. The 
>whole idea seems absurd. On what grounds could uttering lang="en-US" 
>be subject to any intellectual property right that justified any 
>royalty demand?"

Good question.
-- 
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com