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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: copyright notice
Message-ID: <1112@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Jan-86 14:24:03 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.1112
Posted: Thu Jan 23 14:24:03 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jan-86 08:23:56 EST
References: <1536@wanginst.UUCP> <1073@ecsvax.UUCP> <602@scc.UUCP>
Reply-To: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Distribution: net
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 16
Summary: misconceptions corrected

In article <602@scc.UUCP> steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes:
[in response to an earlier posting by me]
>. . . There is no reason you 
>cannot copyright something and give it away.

I never said you couldn't!  The problem is in the proposed wording of
the posted copyright notice. "Public domain" legally means the
copyright is owned by the public.  And while you do indeed
automatically own copyright while the work is unpublished, if you
publish the software (or anything else) without copyright notice, you
have just donated it to the public domain.
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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