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From: woody@tybalt.caltech.edu (William Edward Woody)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: copyrights (was: Shareware? Hah!)
Message-ID: <5595@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 29 Feb 88 03:03:21 GMT
References: <4815@ihlpg.ATT.COM> <3343@killer.UUCP> <2608@gryphon.CTS.COM> <333@esquire.UUCP> <The Chicago Manual of Style> <366@sas.UUCP>
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Reply-To: woody@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (William Edward Woody)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
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In article <366@sas.UUCP> bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) writes:
>1. I am not sure whether (c) is really a valid substitute for C-in-a-circle,
>   so this may be a good reason to use ``Copyright (c) 1988 . . .''  

	No, (c) [open-paren, lower-case 'c', close-paren] is not a suitable
substitute for (c) [lower-case 'c' in a circle].  The reason why in the
U.S. that you can get away with 'Copyright (c) 1987 FooBar Inc.' [where
(c) is open-paren 'c' close-paren] is because of the keyword 'Copyright'.
I don't believe that this is good overseas.

>2. Since there is no penalty for not sending in the copies (unless, as the
>   quote says later, specifically asked to by the Registar of Copyrights),
>   there is no real reason to bother.  Perhaps a lawyer could tell use why
>   they bother making something ``illegal'' but giving it no penalty.

	Because unless you register it with the Registrar of Copyrights,
it is d*mned near impossible to enforce your copyright.  The registrar
simply time-stamps and stores a copy of your written work so when you go
to court claiming I stole your work, you can hold up an official document
from the registrar saying "see, I did indeed do this in May of 1987, but
you claim to have done yours in December.  Gotcha!"
	You _can_ alternatly mail yourself a copy of your written work,
and store the _unopened_ envelope in a safe place, but this is not quite
prefered as it's easy to fake an appropriately timestamped envelope.  (Steam
open, alter work, steam close).

	Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but I got all sorts of 'Lawyer jokes'
out of my SS classes (where I slept through all this material  ;-).
  -  William Edward Woody
     woody@tybalt.caltech.edu                   (Mac>][n&&/|\)&&(MacII>AT)
Disclamer:  I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about...