RE: Re: More questions [from herc/390]

As I understand it, it's not absolutely necessary here either.  All that's required is that you put a copyright notice with date on the item (book, program) in question.  If a dispute arises, you have
to be able to show a verifiable copy of the item WITH the copyright statement on it that predates the other parties version.  Registering the item with copyright notice makes this automatic, but there
have been other methods used over the years, such as posting a copy of the item to yourself, and using the postmark as verification.

In the case of a published book, verification is simple.  Not quite so with programs.  You'd have to be able to show a dated paper listing containing your copyright notice, and convince a judge that
it was genuine.  If you can get others to testify they had copies of your work that predate the infringing version, that might do also.

Back in the 60's, MAD Magazine won a copyright suit brought by someone who claimed her father had created the image of Alfred E Neumann in the 1930's.  She showed versions of the picture containing
her father's copyright notice.  Others, however, provided almost identical pictures going back to well before the turn of the century.  The copyright claim was held to be invalid and the image was
considered to be "in the public domain".


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Wade [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 12:50 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: [hercules-advocacy] Re: More questions [from herc/390]
> 
> 
> Jeffrey,
>  In the UK it has never been necessary to register your copyright, so
> perhaps the law has never been as universal as I thought.
>     Dave.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jeffrey R. Broido [mailto:[email protected]]
> > Sent: 06 November 2003 17:21
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: [hercules-advocacy] Re: More questions [from herc/390]
> > 
> > David,
> > 
> > Indeed, there have been copyright laws in force during the entire
> > computer era, but there was a great deal of controversy over whether
> > they could apply to software until enough judicial precedent built-
> > up to make software copyright common and enforcable.
> > 
> > It is certainly true that in the absence of copyright notices
> > embedded in the media that a work cannot be considered copyright-
> > protected, but the converse is not entirely true.  For if a work's
> > copyright is not registered, the right is not enforcable.
> > 
> > As an example of this, I wrote a relatively minor piece of code in
> > 1984, a TSO CP called MAPXA, and contributed it to the CBT tape.  It
> > had an embedded copyright notice but I didn't bother to register the
> > copyright and, in any case, in 1984 I'm not certain that my
> > registration would have been accepted.  A few years later, I found
> > my code, most of it byte-for-byte identical, embedded in Boole &
> > Babbage's product, RESOLVE, with my copyright notice replaced with
> > theirs.
> > 
> > I complained to them that among their staff was, apparently, at
> > least one pirate and they had the gall to write me an official
> > letter claiming to have written the code from scratch in-house.  As
> > I hadn't registered the copyright, I had no legal leg to stand on.
> > 
> > Bomber
> > 
> > --- In hercules-advocacy, David Wade wrote:
> > 
> > <snip>
> > > There have, as far as I know always been software copyright laws.
> > > They certainly pre-date much of the software that is now free.
> > > They did however require that the copyright owner declare their
> > > copyright.  IBM did not do this on early versions of VM. It
> > > therefore has no copyright status. IBM cannot prevent it being
> > > copied, redistributed or modified. <snip>
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> > 
> > 
> > 
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