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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Posting copyrighted material w/out copyright
Message-ID: <1317@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Feb-87 17:05:24 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.1317
Posted: Wed Feb 18 17:05:24 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Feb-87 21:23:16 EST
Reply-To: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 18
Summary: once it is done, the copyright isn't valid any more

The recent discussion about "uuslave" and whether it is owned by
AT&T or not seems to ignore a basic tenet of the copyright laws:

Once something is released in the public domain without a copyright
(or a 'legally valid one') it is de facto publicly owned.  Any
previous copyright must either immediately be asserted and all copies
of the system without copyright notice must be withdrawn from the 
public or the company loses the right to claim the copyright.

Since AT&T has been very quiet about it, and (I think) there isn't any
copyright notice in the uuslave source, then it *IS* now a public
domain program.

I refer interested people to the document "Intellectual Property Rights
in an Age of Electronics and Information", a publication of the 
US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA-CIT-302).

						-- Dave Taylor --