On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 22:03:44 -0500, Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Let me clarify. :-) > > I have few complaints with the treatment of material for which the authors > *claim* copyright. > > My complaint is about material distributed willy-nilly by its authors with > *no* copyright statements and *no* licensing information. Clearly the > authors didn't intend "all rights reserved", but that's what current law > assumes. > > In contrast, pre-1986 (I think) US law specified that works published (== > deliberately distributed to the public by their authors) without a copyright > statement went into the public domain. > > Note that this email message is subject to copyright, and can't legally be > reprinted without permission (except for fair use, such as quotation rights). > Under pre-1986 US law, it would be public domain, because I didn't affix a > copyright notice. > > This change has, frankly, made a freaking mess. This is why projects have to > have statements like "By submitting a patch, you agree to license it to us > under (license of choice)". Under the old law, submitting a patch of your > own authorship to a public bug tracking system would be publishing it, and if > you did so without a copyright notice -- public domain.
As I understand US law (though my knowledge of it is just marginal), the publishing without copyright notice wouldn't make it public domain, but just not-enforceable. Very often in litigation, one would register an already (long before) published work, to be able to enforce it in the upcoming litigation. I am not sure about this, but as a defense (the 'no, I am not infringing your copyright'), it probably doesn't have to be registred, but to be sure you should ask a US lawyer. kind regards batist