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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!madd
From: madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Copyright notices (was: Shareware? Hah!)
Message-ID: <20124@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 23 Feb 88 18:47:30 GMT
References: <4815@ihlpg.ATT.COM> <3343@killer.UUCP> <2608@gryphon.CTS.COM> <333@esquire.UUCP> <22977@brunix.UUCP> <21023@bbn.COM> <2069@polya.STANFORD.EDU> <28@dcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga
Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 43

In article <28@dcs.UUCP> wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
>In article <2069@polya.STANFORD.EDU> rwilson@polya.UUCP (Randy Wilson) writes:
>One interesting question is this, however: As has been stated, a
>"c in parentheses" is not a valid legal substitute for a "c in a circle".
>
>Thus, " (c) 1987 by John Doe " is not a valid copyright notice.
>
>However, since the notation "Copyright 1986 by John Doe" is valid, does the
>presence of "c in parentheses" between the word "Copyright" and the year
>REALLY invalidate the copyright notice?
>
>After all, all that is required (the word "Copyright" and the year) IS PRESENT,
>there's just a bit extra.

I would put my money on notices of the type:

	(c) Copyright 1988 Jim Frost All Rights Reserved

as being legal for two reasons.  First, it satisfies the requirements
of the copyright law, and second, your uSoft linker displays this when
you run it.  It seems likely that uSoft's lawyers know what they're
doing.

Whether or not

	Copyright (c) 1988 Jim Frost All Rights Reserved

is legal would be open to interpretation, but again the law only
states that the word "Copyright" (or the abbr. or \(co), the year, and
the name be present.  Hence

	Copyright 1988 by Jim Frost All Rights Reserved

should also be valid (this is another common one and I believe that it
is valid).  In both of these cases, they fulfill the copyright law to
the letter.

Does anyone have a definitive answer?  Is it legal to place other
words or symbols in the copyright notice so long as the notice is
still obvious?

jim frost
madd@bu-it.bu.edu