Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Request for permission (Important)
Message-ID: <10051@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 24 May 91 12:10:13 GMT
References: <9898@star.cs.vu.nl> <9105201140@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org> <14645@ucrmath.ucr.edu>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Lines: 18

In article <14645@ucrmath.ucr.edu> rhyde@feller.ucr.edu (randy hyde) writes:
>
>Technically, anything posted to internet without an explicit copyright
>is probably PD (look at the internet charter and the way stuff gets
>distributed`

Absolutely not.  Look at the copyright law.  The Berne convention, to which
just about every industrial country is a party, including the U.S. since about
1988, clearly states that all books, articles, music, plays, and other forms
of intellectual property are automatically copyright by the author at the
moment they are expressed.  A copyright notice is NOT required.  In fact,
in Europe, copyright notices are frequently omitted.  Of course putting in
a copyright notice warns the reader that the material is copyright, but it
is just as copyright without it.  The only exception I know of is that works
produced by the U.S. government are not copyright.  The government feels
you should get something for your money.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)