copyright notice
Chuq Von Rospach
chuq at sun.uucp
Sat Jan 18 06:13:25 AEST 1986
[I've redirected future followups to net.news, since this DOESN'T belong
in net.sources]
> >* ShareWare Copyright Notice *
> >* Copyright I.M. Author. month day, year *
> >* *
> >* In recognition of the contributions of those who have gone before, and *
> >* to encourage those who will follow, the attached software is placed in *
> >* The Public Domain. /s/ I. M. Author month day, year *
>
> William says this lets the author retain copyright while permitting the
> work to be freely copied. I'm pretty sure that's not the case. If you
> "place something in the public domain" you have just given up your
> copyright, by definition of "public domain." Far safer is to say
> "permission is hereby granted to copy and use this work except for
> profit" or words to that effect.
Copyright and public domain are mutually exclusive terms. You can't do
both.. You **SHOULD** be able to copyright and allow redistribution for
non-commercial purposes but I haven't seen any case that set this
precedent. Be VERY careful how you define your terms. "Public domain"
is a well defined legal term, and if you call something that the lawyers
will assume that you give up ALL rights regardless of what you meant.
> Incidentally, Americans should note that if you put a copyright notice
> on something you are legally obligated to send a copy to the Library of
> Congress *whether or not you choose to register your copyright claim*!
I've never seen that requirement, and I'd love to see where it came from (have
they changed copyrights when I wasn't looking?) Last I looked, you didn't even
have to publish something to copyright it, much less ship a copy anywhere. You
only need to register a work if you think you are going to have to file a
claim, otherwise you don't need to do anything to copyright.
--
:From catacombs of Castle Tarot: Chuq Von Rospach
sun!chuq at decwrl.DEC.COM {hplabs,ihnp4,nsc,pyramid}!sun!chuq
It's not looking, it's heat seeking.
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