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From: ark@rabbit.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Legalities of copying software
Message-ID: <1837@rabbit.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Aug-83 21:45:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: rabbit.1837
Posted: Mon Aug 22 21:45:03 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Aug-83 15:29:31 EDT
References: <289@burl.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 48

Computing Surveys did an article on this issue -- I forget
just when.  What follows is my understanding of that article,
which I read at the time it was published.  It does pertain to
the "new" (1968) copyright law.  I am not a lawyer, and my
recollections may be inaccurate.

Anyone who creates an artistic or literary work (which includes
computer programs) is entitled to copyright protection.  All you
have to do to be protected is to include a copyright notice in
the thing for which you want protection.  It is not necessary to
register a copy unless you are about to file suit against someone
for infringement.  In that case, you must first register a copy
with (I think) the Library of Congress.  There is a nominal fee
attached to such registration.

Copyright protection means that anyone who wants to make a copy of
the thing in question must first obtain your permission.  Period.
A copy includes a translation into another language, a paraphrase,
a digest, or even a summary (I think).  I think it's OK to lift
small sections of a book or article for review purposes, but that
may have gone out in 1968.

The Computing Surveys article contained the following case in point.
A church choir director bought copies of a book of chorales for his
chorus.  He particularly liked a certain hymn, but the arrangement did
not suit his chorus well, so he rearranged it.  He decided he liked the
new arrangement better than the old, so he send a copy of it to the
book's publisher, along with a letter saying that he had made this arrangement
to suit his chorus, and, if the publisher liked it, they were welcome
to publish it in a future edition of the book without paying him.

The publisher sued the choir director for copyright infringement and won.

The point is that he made an unauthorized copy of the work.  The
purpose to which it was put was totally irrelevant.

The same situation applies if you copy software on a floppy disk,
by any means whatever.  If there is a copyright notice, you must
obtain permission from the copyright holder, or else you are in
violation.  This is true regardless of the use to which you put the
copy.

I think it is probably true (but am less certain) that if you make an
illegal copy of something and give (or sell) it to me, that the
copyright holder cannot take any action against me.  The only thing
copyright protection provides is a means to prevent people from making
illegal copies, and I did not make any copies.  Of course, if I copy
the disk you gave me, the copyright holder might then have recourse.