greg@agora.hf.intel.com (Greg Broiles) (02/13/90)
In VIRUS-L V3-36, Olivier Crepin-Leblond <ZDEE699@ELM.CC.KCL.AC.UK> writes: > In VIRUS-L V3-34 Steven C Woronick <XRAYSROK@SBCCVM.BITNET> writes: > > >Even if you could copyright viral code, it's > >not likely to discourage the kind of people who write viruses (aren't > >those the ones you are really after?) from copying it. Also, what > >happens if some virus-loving person copyrights it before you do and > >then grants universal privilege to copy? Just wondering... [text deleted] > I can hardly imagine some individual copyrighting virus source code. > Anyone doing that will probably be in for a lot of trouble... Well, if it's written in the United States, it's copyrighted automatically as soon as it's written to disk. Anything "recorded in a fixed medium of expression" is automatically copyrighted, with the rights going to the author, unless she gives them up voluntarily. No registration is necessary (unlike patents), though it's helpful in the case of a disputed claim of ownership. Work done for an empoyer belongs to the employer, not the employee. I'm not a lawyer (I may end up as one someday) and I can't immediately put my hands on a copy of the results of research I did on copyrights a few years ago. The above is correct, but might be incomplete. At any rate, I'm certain that, if Sam Sociopath locks himself up in a Las Vegas hotel room and writes a virus, the copyright belongs to him. (Unless he makes it public domain, transfers the rights, or is being paid by another to write the virus.) The United States has behaved strangely in the past in terms of agreeing to and adherence to international treaties about copyrights. Things may very well be different for viruses developed elsewhere, though I doubt they could be copyrighted here.