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From: crs@cpsc6b.cpsc6a.att.com (C. R. Seaman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: POE copyright problems
Message-ID: <311@cpsc6b.cpsc6a.att.com>
Date: Thu, 20-Aug-87 15:21:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: cpsc6b.311
Posted: Thu Aug 20 15:21:08 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 12:49:03 EDT
References: <7108@g.ms.uky.edu> <1062@vu-vlsi.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T (CPSC), Oakland, CA
Lines: 35
Keywords: copyright, public domain
Summary: Huh?

In article <1062@vu-vlsi.UUCP>, guest@vu-vlsi.UUCP (visitors) writes:
<In article <7108@g.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes:
<>
<>>                      Copyright (c) 1987 by Mark Herring
<>>                         Donated to the Public Domain
<>
<>If you don't know, Copyright means you control the right to copy.
<>Public Domain means that you have relinquished all exclusive rights
<>to it.
<
<What we have here is not necessarily a invalidation of his copyright.
<If the author further explains (he may have done this, I do not have a
<copy of the whole file) something to the effect that the program may be
<freely copied in its unaltered form, for non-profit use, etc. the author
<is still the only person allowed to legally sell it for profit...

I hate to disagree, but once software has been released into the public
domain, there are **NO** legal ramifications regarding its use or misuse.
That includes making as much profit as any user wants.  No matter what
else I may state in a document or source code file, if I state that the
item is being released into the "Public Domain", it nullifies all other
statements.

The concept described above (by the last poster) is commonly known as
"Shareware", which always makes the statement "This software is not in
the public domain".

As the first poster said, the author of the mentioned document has
invalidated his own copyright.

-- 
Chris Seaman            |    o\  /o
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