Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!att!alberta!ubc-cs!fornax!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: The USENET Macintosh Programmer's Guide
Summary: not quite true
Message-ID: <930@fornax.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 89 05:48:32 GMT
References: <396@biar.UUCP> <2708@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Organization: School of Computing Science, SFU, Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Lines: 39

In article <2708@pegasus.ATT.COM>, ech@pegasus.ATT.COM (Edward C Horvath) writes:
> In article <3969@ece-csc.UUCP> jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall) writes:
> >1) Copyright.  Several of you have suggested copyrighting the Guide in one
> >form or another, ostensibly to prevent commercial exploitation.  I'll admit
> >I haven't given this issue exhaustive thought, but I would rather NOT see
> >it copyrighted.  In particular, programming examples and/or modules
> >distributed with the Guide should be available for ANY use whatsoever.
> 
> From article <396@biar.UUCP>, by trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead):
> > Copyright gives _you_ _control_ of what is done with the work.  You just
> > clearly specify "You can do this, this and this;  you cannot do this; and
> > if you want to do something we haven't listed, you must get written
> > permission from us."  Of course, see a lawyer to get the words right.
> 
> And to be brutally specific, Copyright precludes ANYONE ELSE from slapping
> a copyright on the work.  Without one, I can copyright the work and demand
> that YOU pay ME royalties for use.  Again, ask a lawyer for specifics.
> 
> =Ned Horvath=

Not quite true, I think.  (Correct me if I'm wrong.)  Work placed in the public
domain can never after be copyrighted by ANYONE--including the original author.
A work does not have to be EXPLICITLY placed in the public domain for this to
apply; a company which does not take action to protect its copyrighted 
materials may later find that a court declares them to be in the public domain
(one of the reasons companies MUST prosecute people who flagrantly violate
copyright, even if they would prefer not to), and in the case of a work such
as the UMPG, I strongly suspect that just releasing it, with no restrictions
or declarations at all, would effectively place it in the public domain.

Ken McDonald

PS A big advantage of copyrighting something like this is it means no one
can come up with a "renegade" version of the guide.  A disadvantage is that
people who might come up with a good variation now have to go through you,
increasing the workload all way round.  A possible solution might be to
copyright it, state that the guide and any modified versions may be freely
distributed, but that any version which is not an "approved" version must
state so clearly and obviously.