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From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga animations on VHS now available
Message-ID: <24951@usc.edu>
Date: 28 May 90 06:20:20 GMT
References: <1860@corpane.UUCP> <24938@usc.edu> <1409@faatcrl.UUCP>
Sender: news@usc.edu
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In article <1409@faatcrl.UUCP> jprad@faatcrl.UUCP (Jack Radigan) writes:
>papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
>>consider Sentinel to be public domain.  Note also that the lack of a copyright
>>notice on Sentinel does not make it public domain, due to the fact that this
>>item is no longer required to mantain copyright.  While he feels that his
>>animation can be freely redistributed on floppy media, he claims that NOBODY
>>has the right to use his animation on videotape compilations without his 
>>permission.
>
>Partially true.  While ommision of a copyright no longer causes you to lose
>complete control over the copyright, or even the exclusive rights to it, it
>*does* make it impossible for you to win a copyright infringement case if the
>infringer claims  Innocent infringer" status.

Well, the infringer cannot just claim "innocent" infringement. He has to
"prove" it, which is quite different.  Given the fact that it is likely that
he would be contacted in case he goes along and releases the tape, not stopping
subsequent shipments would certainly drop the possibility of innocent 
infringement. And I am sure that by now he's found out about it from his net
connections.

>More importantly though is the fact that this protection is only extended to
							     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>US Copyright Law.  On the international level, the copyright would probably
								    ^^^^^^^^
>be found invalid unless the country in question has signed the Berne Convention.

Well, to be nice, I'd say that the above is "incorrect":

The truth is, since the US joined the Berne convention, beginning March 1,
1989 copyright in the works of U.S authors will be protected automatically 
in ALL members of the Berne Union (as of September 1988, there were a total
of 79 members in the Berne Convention.  At last count, all countries in which
Commodore sells machines are now signatories of Berne).

-- Marco
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