Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!umich!sharkey!cfctech!ttardis!rlw
From: rlw@ttardis.UUCP (Ron Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: GS music player
Message-ID: <2429@ttardis.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 90 19:00:30 GMT
Organization: Gallifrey
Lines: 32

In article <881@batman.moravian.EDU>, nicholaA@batman.moravian.EDU (Andy Nicholas) writes:
>SoundSmith is shareware ... but this bring up a very good point.  Just what is
>the legal status of anything posted to the network?
> 
>I was reading a reply by someone in comp.sys.amiga who had gotten the opinion
>of a copyright lawyer that anything posted on usenet for the use of others
>automatically forfeited his/her copyright since their software would end up on
>30,000 machines (or so).
>
>I'm kind of interested in what is said, because if this is so, I won't be
>posting ShrinkIt 3.0 or GS/ShrinkIt to comp.binaries.apple2 if I forfeit the
>copyright to the program (hope you can understand why).
>
>andy

I remember reading 3 yaers ago an article posted to USENET by a copyright
lawyer.  The article was (naturally) about copyrignted material.  I would
repost the article, but, the article carried a copyright notice, and said
that the author does NOT grant permission for any to repost, or do anything
other than read it on a terminal (funny thing though, the terminal I happened
to be using to read it was hardcopy terminal (ie: terminal with printer instead
of CRT - HOWEVER, I destroyed the terminal listing in an effort (possibly
futile) to limit any violation I might have (inadvertently) made)

Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the author.

In any case, if you have a question, ask your lawyer - if (s)he doesn't
know the answer, at least (s)he'll tell you who to ask.

BUT, based on the aboved mentioned article, distributing your copyrighted
matterial for free shouldn't negate the copyright - of course, shareware
isn't exactly free.......