finnegan@dhw68k.cts.com (Greg Finnegan) (09/29/90)
Does anyone know what it takes to obtain a copyright for an
application. I seem to remember a thread about this a while
ago - if I recall, there are two ways to do this: 1) hire
a lawyer ($$$) or 2) fill out some kind of paperwork and send
in a small filing fee.
Any pointers or suggestion greatly appreciated (I ship in 4
weeks).
Greg.
--
uucp: ...{spsd,zardoz,felix}!dhw68k!finnegan
InterNet: finnegan@dhw68k.cts.com
--------------------------------------------cory@howtek.UUCP (Cory Kempf) (10/05/90)
In article <1990Sep28.205815.9298@dhw68k.cts.com> finnegan@dhw68k.cts.com (Greg Finnegan) writes: > >Does anyone know what it takes to obtain a copyright for an >application. Bear in mind that I am not a lawyer. The following is how I understand the situation: In the "Good Old Days" (pre Berne convention), what was necessary was to include a copyright notice in the actual binary, as well as on the first screen of the application, and also in some easily accessable location. A copyright notice consisted of one of the following: Copyright 1990 Cory Kempf Copyr. 1990 Cory Kempf [a c in a circle] 1990 Cory Kempf In any of the above, the "1990" could be replaced by either "1988,1989" or "1980-1990" (use whatever year(s) that your product was copyrighted in (e.g. the years that it was released in)). Note that '(c)' had no legal standing. For International stuff, the words "All Rights Reserved" were also necessary. Now, since the Berne convention, a product is copyrighted UNLESS you EXPLICITLY put a statement saying that it is in the public domain. However, current wisdom is that you will have a hard time getting dammages (from an infringement suit) if you do not have a copyright notice on your product. Given that, it is probably best to put a notice in the binary, the about box, and the splash screen, the manual, etc, of the sort: Copyright [opt-g] 1990 Cory Kempf All Rights Reserved. +C