Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cca.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxt!mhuxr!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!cca!dee From: dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) Newsgroups: net.sources,net.legal Subject: Re: copyright notice Message-ID: <5738@cca.UUCP> Date: Mon, 20-Jan-86 14:31:16 EST Article-I.D.: cca.5738 Posted: Mon Jan 20 14:31:16 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 23-Jan-86 08:28:37 EST References: <5600@cca.UUCP> <> Reply-To: dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) Distribution: net Organization: Computer Corp. of America, Cambridge Lines: 86 Xref: watmath net.sources:4175 net.legal:2758 In article <> jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) writes: >In article <5600@cca.UUCP> dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) writes: >> >>Sounds like nonsense to me. If something is in the public domain, I >>can do more or less anything with it, including making copies of it >>with my copyright notice. > >Now that's nonsense. The copyright law, like the patent law does not >allow one to copyright or patent anything in the public domain. Patent law is radically more stringent than copyright law. Lets limit ourselves to copyright. >The fact that >you can physically insert your notice into something reflects the >portion of the copyright law which allows you to copyright your >changes to a public domain object. I didn't say anything about inserting my notice into a public domain object. I said I could make a copy of the public domain object and add my copyright notice to said copy. >Thus assuming you have obtained a public domain object such as source code >of a utility, and you are able to modify this and redistribute your >modified source with your copyright notice in it. > >Now I come along and receive your distributed source. I am able to determine >your modifications (perhaps I've always had a printed listing, but didn't >want to type a lot) and remove them. I may then make my own modifications >to the source code and redistribute it. And you can do nothing about it. Even if you can provably exactly recover the original public domain "thing", which is more or less possible if the object is a simple bit pattern, and remove all modifications I have made, I would still, in general, have just grounds to object and could sue you. For example, what if I had gone to a lot of work to find and piece together the best working versions of a group of related public domain modules and also made some minor mods to one of them. Clearly I could copyright this assemblage. (I could do so even if there were no mods although if I was at all clever I would make some subtle ones (like maybe changing to where it would not matter) so I could nail you in court). Do you think that the copyright notices in books of quoatations are invalid because these books are assemblages of public domain utterances? But, you object, what about single works that are not compilations? Well, why do publishers normally put current copyright notices into photographic reprints of old books whose copyrights have expired? Don't they deserve some reward for locating a copy in resonably good condition and reprinting it? How can you tell if they just grabbed a copy from the local library or had to painstakingly piece together the good pages from the only five copies left in the world, each partly damanged. Yet this is all public domain stuff. Another example, lets look at photography and art. Photographers and artists have copyright in their works regardless of how closely they resemble some common real world "public domain" scene. Although theoretically based on their creativity, in reality its more like they have copyright because they claim it. Looking at these and other examples, the only conclusion I can come to is that, under modern copyright law, the amount of "originality" or "work" investment required to support a valid copyright claim is so small that if I took public domain software, added a copyright notice TO THE COPIES I DISTRIBUTED the law would uphold my right to restrict further copying of those particular copies in return for my work of distribution and my "creativity" in picking that particular material to distribute. [PS: I have not done this, don't plan to, and would not expect it to be popular if I tried.] >An object, once in public domain, is always in public domain. Even if the above sentence is true, I only spoke of doing things to copies of public domain objects. >Also, the other side of this is that if you modify a copyrighted object >you may copyright your modifications, but you still cannot distribute >the results without the approval of the original copyright holder. At last, somethig I can agree with. (Well, not quite. Actually you can distribute it if you don't copy it. That is, if you buy a fresh copy from the original copyrightholder each time, you can then modify and sell that copy, barring some contractual agreement to the contrary.) -- +1 617-492-8860 Donald E. Eastlake, III ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!dee