richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/11/90)
Followups to misc.legal and news.MISC, not ADMIN. In article <7686@stealth.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes: >Most of what Barry says is at least technically correct, but some of it >is a bit misleading. Everyone should know the informal legal principles >of Covering Your Ass and Making It Clear To The Other Guy. > >If you use Copr. or a circled c instead of Copyright, then your notice >will still be valid here; but there are countries where neither Copr nor >a circled c is sufficient. So always use Copyright. If you remembered this, your memory is faulty. If a lawyer told you this, get a new lawyer. You got it backwards. The ``circle with a c in it'' is internationally recognized. The english word ``Copyright'' is not recognized in all countries, as is ``Copr.'' And stop crashing phoenix. In article <10907@attctc.Dallas.TX.US> rissa@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Patricia O Tuama) writes: >In article <9001070301.AA10109@sorinc.UUCP> pacbell.PacBell.COM!sorinc!magik writes: > >>held in court) that your act of submitting the article places it in the >>public domain at least as far as distribution goes, as you are purposefully >>making the article available for unrestricted public access all over the >>world. > >The act of posting an article to a public network or BBS is what >puts it the public domain, not the distribution of the article. I was rather shocked when I read this, so I called Trish. Yes, she did talk to a lawyer specializing in computer law, and yes, anything you post to a BBS or to USENET, IRREGARDLESS OF ANY COPYRIGHT NOTICES YOU HAVE, is now in the public domain. If you want to maintain a copyright, don't post it. You have to make a reasonable effort as controlling the distribution of your copyrighted material. Letting 30,000 machines all over the world copy and forward your copyrighted material can hardly be construed as a good faith effort at controlling distribution. Ther ramifications of this on things like OtherRealms are left as an exercise for the reader. Somebody might want to point this out to Chuq. It was the opinion of this (computer) lawyer that the following things were invalid: 1) The compilatin copyright on Brads Jokebook. 2) Compuserves compilation copyright. 3) GEnie's compilaiton copyright. Merely collecting material does not give you a compilation copyright. You need to add to it or change it in a not insignificant manner (usually taken to be 30%)