ralph@laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) (06/12/90)
In article <1990May22.023212.9736@melba.bby.oz.au> zvs@bby.oz.au (Zev Sero) writes: | In article <1990May18.214123.14992@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> schultzd@frith.uucp (David Schultz) writes: | | If someone sends me U.S. mail, I can do whatever the He** I want with it, | including xerox it and mail it to everyone in the World! | | No, you can't. Not without the writer's permission. Ever heard of | copyright? I'm not so sure! Doesn't the copyright have to be explicit? And what's in *my* mailbox becomes *my* property, isn't that so? -- Ralph P. Sobek Disclaimer: The above ruminations are my own. ralph@laas.fr Addresses are ordered by importance. ralph@laas.uucp, or ...!uunet!laas!ralph If all else fails, try: sobek@eclair.Berkeley.EDU =============================================================================== Reliable software should kill people reliably! -Andy Mickel, Pascal News #13,78
exspes@gdr.bath.ac.uk (P E Smee) (06/13/90)
In article <RALPH.90Jun12122240@cresus.laas.fr> ralph@laas.fr writes: >In article <1990May22.023212.9736@melba.bby.oz.au> zvs@bby.oz.au (Zev Sero) writes: >| In article <1990May18.214123.14992@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> schultzd@frith.uucp (David Schultz) writes: >| >| If someone sends me U.S. mail, I can do whatever the He** I want with it, >| including xerox it and mail it to everyone in the World! >| >| No, you can't. Not without the writer's permission. Ever heard of >| copyright? > >I'm not so sure! Doesn't the copyright have to be explicit? And >what's in *my* mailbox becomes *my* property, isn't that so? In the US, what is mailed to you becomes your property from the moment it is mailed -- put into a mailbox or handed across a post office counter. However, what you own is ONLY that physical copy -- NOT any further rights such as reproduction. You CAN show it to anyone else in the world, but you CAN'T necessarily copy it. I'm not sure what the analogy for electronic mail would be, where there is no physical copy. Feels like it ought to be 'you can forward it to one person, if you don't keep a copy yourself' and 'you can let anyone read it from your terminal'. Explicit copyright (notices or registration) are NOT strictly required. Though your failure to do something explicit would probably influence the nature or severity of any court judgement if you sued someone for copying your work. (Especially if you DIDN't put a copyright notice in, and someone else grabbed it and stuck THEIR copyright notice on.) -- Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK P.Smee@bristol.ac.uk - ..!uunet!ukc!bsmail!p.smee - Tel +44 272 303132
ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (L.J.Dickey) (06/15/90)
In article <RALPH.90Jun12122240@cresus.laas.fr> ralph@laas.fr writes: > ... Doesn't the copyright have to be explicit? > And what's in *my* mailbox becomes *my* property, isn't that so? Not with the Berne convention, to which (belatedly) the US now subscribes. Most western nations have subscribed to this for years. If some famous person were to write you a letter, you may OWN it, and even sell it, but that does not mean that you have the right to publish it. The author holds the copyright, implicitly. I think that even if some unsolicited product arrives by mail, and you don't want it, you may be under some obligation to take reasonable precautions for it until the rightful owner shows up. Of course you may charge a reasonable storage fee.
oc@vmp.com (Orlan Cannon) (06/15/90)
In article <RALPH.90Jun12122240@cresus.laas.fr>, ralph@laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) writes: > In article <1990May22.023212.9736@melba.bby.oz.au> zvs@bby.oz.au (Zev Sero) writes: > | In article <1990May18.214123.14992@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> schultzd@frith.uucp (David Schultz) writes: > | > | If someone sends me U.S. mail, I can do whatever the He** I want with it, > | including xerox it and mail it to everyone in the World! > | > | No, you can't. Not without the writer's permission. Ever heard of > | copyright? > > I'm not so sure! Doesn't the copyright have to be explicit? And > what's in *my* mailbox becomes *my* property, isn't that so? Copyright, by the most recent legislation in the United States (your mileage may vary in other parts of the world), does not have to be explicit. The copyright is implicit in the creation of the work. A person retains the copyright for their work whether or not there is an explicit copyright notice and whether or not the work is published. It is no one's property except the original author's. -- Orlan Cannon oc@vmp.com Video Marketing & Publications, Inc. (800) 627-4551 Oradell, NJ 07649
jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) (06/15/90)
ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (L.J.Dickey) wrote: > I think that even if some unsolicited product arrives by mail, and you > don't want it, you may be under some obligation to take reasonable > precautions for it until the rightful owner shows up. I think this is true under English law; but under Scots law you have an unconditional right to do what you like with anything that drops through your mailbox. I once used that, when working in a radical bookshop; we were sent a sample copy of an English-produced booklet aimed at anti-nuclear demonstrators purporting to describe their rights under arrest. It totally ignored the existence of the Scottish legal system and could have got anyone using it here into DEEP shit. I scrawled some rude remarks on it and threw it into our freebies bin, telling the author/publishers that we weren't interested. They replied saying they still didn't believe the Scots legal system was different from the English one and could they have their sample back... -- -- Jack Campin Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland 041 339 8855 x6044 work 041 556 1878 home JANET: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk BANG!net: via mcvax and ukc FAX: 041 330 4913 INTERNET: via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk BITNET: via UKACRL UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp