RE: Copyright! RE: TO ALL PLEASE READ

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Steve Greenfield by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <alienrelics-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Alright, can't be bothered to read the link. Please note that the
following should be covered under Fair Use. A quote from "10 Big
Myths about Copyright":
http://www.templetons-dot-com/brad/copymyths.html

1) "If it doesn't have a copyright notice, it's not copyrighted." 
This was true in the past, but today almost all major nations
follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA,
almost everything created privately and originally after April 1,
1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not.
The default you should assume for other people's works is that they
are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise.
There are some old works that lost protection without notice, but
frankly you should not risk it unless you know for sure. 
It is true that a notice strengthens the protection, by warning
people, and by allowing one to get more and different damages, but
it is not necessary. If it looks copyrighted, you should assume it
is. This applies to pictures, too. You may not scan pictures from
magazines and post them to the net, and if you come upon something
unknown, you shouldn't post that either. 

-end quote-

Another quote:

2) "If I don't charge for it, it's not a violation." 
False. Whether you charge can affect the damages awarded in court,
but that's main difference under the law. It's still a violation if
you give it away -- and there can still be serious damages if you
hurt the commercial value of the property. There is an exception
for personal copying of music, which is not a violation, though
courts seem to have said that doesn't include widescale anonymous
personal copying as Napster. If the work has no commercial value,
the violation is mostly technical and is unlikely to result in
legal action. Fair use determinations (see below) do sometimes
depend on the involvement of money. 

-end quote-

The summary:

In Summary
  These days, almost all things are copyrighted the moment they are
written, and no copyright notice is required. 
  Copyright is still violated whether you charged money or not,
only damages are affected by that. 
  Postings to the net are not granted to the public domain, and
don't grant you any permission to do further copying except perhaps
the sort of copying the poster might have expected in the ordinary
flow of the net. 
  Fair use is a complex doctrine meant to allow certain valuable
social purposes. Ask yourself why you are republishing what you are
posting and why you couldn't have just rewritten it in your own
words. 
  Copyright is not lost because you don't defend it; that's a
concept from trademark law. The ownership of names is also from
trademark law, so don't say somebody has a name copyrighted. 
  Fan fiction and other work derived from copyrighted works is a
copyright violation. 
  Copyright law is mostly civil law where the special rights of
criminal defendants you hear so much about don't apply. Watch out,
however, as new laws are moving copyright violation into the
criminal realm. 
  Don't rationalize that you are helping the copyright holder;
often it's not that hard to ask permission. 
  Posting E-mail is technically a violation, but revealing facts
from E-mail you got isn't, and for almost all typical E-mail,
nobody could wring any damages from you for posting it. The law
doesn't do much to protect works with no commercial value. 
 
-end quote-

Steve Greenfield

--- Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:
> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
> <jim-at-jlproduction-dot-com>
> 
> Actually I believe the reverse is true. Having a go around with
> this
> issue at one point, and ending up with lawyers involved, it is my
> understanding that the burden is on the creator/owner to post it
> as
> protected. Further, the owner/creator must then prove the
> material was
> used with intent to gain in some way. Just using it (an image for
> example) as desktop wallpaper for example is not enough. This is
> similar
> to the deer hunting issue wherein the land owner must post it AND
> post
> it legally for law enforcement to uphold the trespass issue. If
> not it's
> wide open to public use, at least in my state anyway.
> Jim 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com] 
> Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 10:13 PM
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Copyright! RE: TO ALL PLEASE READ
> 
> Original poster: "Steve Greenfield by way of Terry Fritz
> <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <alienrelics-at-yahoo-dot-com>
> 
> Big NO! This is not true. By the Berne Convention, everything is
> copyright when you create it. Has nothing to do with whether or
> not
> you make money with it. Damages (if any) may be assigned
> according
> to how much you may have made -and- according to how much money
> the
> copyright owner may have lost as a result of your copying. But
> even
> if no money is involved, copyright is retained by the creator and
> if they don't explicitly say OK, it ain't OK.
> 
> You should -ask- in each case. Don't just assume. As has been
msnip...