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From: jeh@simpact.com
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: Copyrights & Will this work.
Message-ID: <803.259b7024@simpact.com>
Date: 29 Dec 89 21:09:39 GMT
References: <6902@tank.uchicago.edu> <1685@uwm.edu>
Organization: Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Lines: 44

In article <1685@uwm.edu>, datta@vacs.uwp.wisc.edu (David Datta) writes:
> [...I want to know what you think of the following...]
> This article is Copyright (c) 19xx by David Datta. You are granted
> distribution rights for this article via electronic means.  If you wish
> to distribute this article as part of a print publication [such as a
> book, newsletter, or magazine] you must obtain written authorization.

I'm not a lawyer, but I've dealt a bit with both publishers and with lawyers, 
and I may be able to shed some light on this from the "practical side".  

Any reputable publisher would ask you for written permission before using
material of yours gleaned from Usenet, or any other source for that matter,
whether it had such a copyright notice on it or not, whether it was apparently
in the public domain or not.  This is the result of a combination of advice 
from THEIR lawyers and common courtesy as practiced by reputable publishers.  

A sleazebag publisher probably won't check with you either way; they'll just 
assume that either (a) the material is p-d regardless of your copyright notice
or that (b) you've insufficient resources to bring them to court for 
infringement anyway.  

There are probably a few publishers who are "in between", and who might be
swayed toward the side of caution by the presence of such a notice.  It 
certainly can't hurt.  If you only apply it to reasonably long articles you'll
probably get only a few letters complaining about your waste of network
bandwidth.  

Whether or not your notice (or even a notice drafted by a lawyer) would stand 
up in court is not something that I, or even a copyright lawyer, can state 
with certainty -- unless there is a case on record in which the circumstances 
were very, VERY similar to yours, in which case the answer is still, "it'll 
*very probably* stand up, but we likely wouldn't have to go to court since we
could threaten the offending publisher with letters citing this previous case".

In the absence of such precedent, the correct answer to "would it stand up in 
court if challenged?", the correct answer is "doubtful/maybe/probably [as
appropriate], but you won't know for certain until it's tried" (pun intended).  
Any lawyer who says otherwise is probably trying to lull you into a false 
sense of security: get a second opinion, and/or ask WHY it's so certain.  

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Chair, VMSnet [DECUS uucp] and Internals Working Groups, DECUS VAX Systems SIG 
Internet:  jeh@simpact.com, or if that fails, jeh@crash.cts.com
Uucp:  ...{crash,scubed,decwrl}!simpact!jeh