Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekig5!tekig4!bradn
From: bradn@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM (Bradford Needham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: The USENET Macintosh Programmer's Guide
Summary: Nobody can copyright a public-domain work
Keywords: copyright derivative work
Message-ID: <3825@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM>
Date: 22 Mar 89 02:08:23 GMT
References: <396@biar.UUCP> <2708@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: bradn@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM (Bradford Needham)
Followup-To: misc.legal
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 22

In article <2708@pegasus.ATT.COM> ech@pegasus.ATT.COM (Edward C Horvath) writes:
>Without [a copyright], I can copyright the work and demand
>that YOU pay ME royalties for use.

A non-copyrighted published work cannot be copyrighted.

But someone can do this to a public-domain work:
They can create a derivative work, copyright that, and charge royalties
for it.  The original work is still public-domain -- they can't charge
anyone royalties for possessing a copy of the original work.

Interestingly enough, a similar thing happened to the GNU version of Yacc:
There was once a public domain parser-generator, called Bison.
The GNU folks modified it, then slapped their own copyright on the modified
work.  Bison (the original work) is still public domain, free of the
Free Software Foundation restrictions.

For more information, please read "The Copyright Book" published by MIT press.


Brad Needham
bradn@tekig4.TEK.COM