sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) (08/23/86)
I've seen quite a bit of software posted by people obviously confused by copyright law. They do not put a copyright notice on their software, and they include something like this: This software is public domain. You may not sell this for profit, etc. The two statements are, of course, contradictory, since "public domain" has always meant exactly that. If something is public domain, I can copy it, make airplane banners out of it, or sell it at any price I wish and pocket the profits. My question is, what is the status of such erroneous postings? Are they actually copyrighted, or are they in the public domain? Sean FREE ADVICE: If you wish to distribute software that you don't want sold for a profit, while avoiding the kind of ambiguity that I am addressing, you should clearly copyright your code and include a provisional permission for redistribution. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Casey UUCP: cbosgd!ukma!sean CSNET: sean@uky.csnet University of Kentucky ARPA: ukma!sean@anl-mcs.arpa Lexington, Kentucky BITNET: sean@ukma.bitnet
ddl@husc6.HARVARD.EDU (Dan Lanciani) (08/29/86)
In article <4223@ukma.UUCP>, sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) writes: > > I've seen quite a bit of software posted by people obviously confused by > copyright law. They do not put a copyright notice on their software, and > they include something like this: > > This software is public domain. You may not sell this for > profit, etc. > ... > My question is, what is the status of such erroneous postings? Are they > actually copyrighted, or are they in the public domain? And what about something that begins "Public Domain Release" but then "please respect... copyright notice...," e.g., recent TinyTcp posting in mod.sources. Particularly since a previous copy was posted to net.sources without the "please respect..." part. (Though I assume it had the actual copyright somewhere.) Dan Lanciani ddl@harvard.*