Xref: utzoo news.groups:16088 comp.sys.amiga:46705 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!pollux.usc.edu!papa From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: comp.sys.amiga.questions Message-ID: <22077@usc.edu> Date: 3 Jan 90 18:39:19 GMT References: <7049@nigel.udel.EDU> <57b.02t179Uh01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <123.filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> <25508@cup.portal.com> <25549@cup.portal.com> Sender: news@usc.edu Followup-To: news.groups Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 26 In article <25549@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >In peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) asks: >The simple act of posting to Usenet effectively placed the information in >the public domain, [...] Just for the record, and hoping this won't start a new flame war: the above statement is false. The simple act of posting to usenet is equivalent to "publication". Quite a number of articles on Usenet come with a clearly marked copyright notice. The "date" of publication has known legal implications (it gives you a limited time to file for copyright registration and claim statutory damages). Now that the US has joined the Berne convention, (which does not require copyright notice and registration to retain copyright), putting such a notice is still important (one can't have the benefit of the doubt and say: "Well, I thought it was PD", if a copyright notice was provided). Thad Florian's article on the "stiction" problems of the Seagate drives, could easily have been marked with a copyright, effectively increasing the possibilities of at least having the article properly credited. Of course, it would be stupid to put a copyright on a 20-line message, but the above mentioned article was original and long enough to make it worth protecting it with a copyright notice, IMHO. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "Xerox sues somebody for copying?" -- David Letterman -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=