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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim
From: tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: public domain and copyright in netnews
Message-ID: <320@ism780c.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Jan-86 20:44:28 EST
Article-I.D.: ism780c.320
Posted: Fri Jan 24 20:44:28 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jan-86 05:37:25 EST
References: <3273@glacier.ARPA> <147@ubc-cs.UUCP> <3424@glacier.ARPA>
Reply-To: tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica, CA
Lines: 15

In article <3424@glacier.ARPA> reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes:
>
>It is absolutely false that material posted to USENET is automatically in
>the public domain. Perhaps in Canada (where ubc-cs is) that is true, but in
>the United States all published material is automatically the copyright of
>the author whether or not it has the "Copyright (C) 1986 XXXX" mark on it.

I don't have my books with me, so I may be wrong here, but I think that
if you publish your work without a copyright notice, you do lose the
copyright.  I think I remember reading that one of the advantages of
registering your copyright is that if you accidently publish without
a copyright notice, you are still protected.

-- 
Tim Smith       sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim