[comp.text.desktop] Copyright

rr23+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ronald George Redmond) (12/10/87)

Not wanting to sound dumb, but how does one go about getting one.

--Ronald G. Redmond
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tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu (Timothy J. Horton) (12/15/87)

As far as printed material goes, all you have to do is write
"copyright" or the C in a little circle, your name, and the date,
somewhere that people are sure to find if they look.  That protects
you in the U.S. and much of the world that respects such copyrights.  
For official copyright registration, file forms available from the
Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 20559.
Filing adds no rights beyond those you get by simply including the
phrase, but does prove the exact date the copyright took effect.

As far as computer software goes, presumably similar laws apply,
(but I'm no expert here).  That's probably why software often
blasts the copyright notification at you when you fire it up.

In Canada, and some other countries, no such phrase is necessary
in printed publications.  Simply assume that anything published
later than 1950 is under copyright.
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Chuq "Fixed in 4.0" Von Rospach			chuq@sun.COM	Delphi: CHUQ

news@sun.uucp (news) (12/17/87)

There is a document in the netnews source distribution called
doc/copyright.mn by Jordan J. Breslow, which goes into some
detail on copyrighting software.

In short, if you write an original work, you don't have to do anything
to have a copyright on it.  To lose a copyright on it, you distribute it
without a copyright notice.  A copyright notice takes the form:

	Copyright 1987 Andrew Tannenbaum

at the top of the document.  That is, the word "copyright," the year of
most recent modification, and the name of the person or corporation who
claims the copyright, in that order.

A c in a circle may replace the word "copyright."  A c in parens (c) may
NOT replace the word "copyright."

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.  I don't even play one on TV.

	Andrew Tannenbaum   Interactive   Boston, MA   +1 617 247 1155
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