> On Jul 3, 2018, at 2:37 PM, Jim Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote: > [..] > In the US (and in many other countries) copyright exists the moment > you create sometime and put your name to it. The US government does > *not* need to keep a record of it in order for copyright to happen. > From the US Copyright Office FAQ: > > When is my work protected? > Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and > fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or > with the aid of a machine or device. > > <https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#mywork>
On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 3:19 PM, Jerome Shidel <jer...@shidel.net> wrote: > Yep… [..] > US copyright law regarding software is similar to that regarding the > written word (Books, Magazines and etc). It is protected by > copyright at the moment of creation. [..] > Unfortunately… > > Although publishing the work can at least establish the date the protected > work was created, it is only a partial solution. Without registering the > copyrighted work with the US Copyright Office, the holder of the copyright > will > be on a poor legal footing and have a difficult time enforcing > any copyright violations committed against their work. > Exactly. And that should answer Dale's question of "So what is the point of having a copyright office." Your work is automatically under copyright when you create it. But if you register the work with the US Copyright Office, then you have a solid legal ground if someone else comes along later and tries to claim "I made that." The same applies to trademark, by the way. Anyone can claim a trademark on something. You don't have to register it. But by filing your trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office, you have greater legal standing if someone tries to use the trademark. That's the difference between ™ and ®. You can claim any trademark with ™. If you register your trademark with the USPTO, you can use ®. But copyright is © whether you register it or not. For example, I claimed "FreeDOS" as a trademark, so no one else can come along later with another project and call it "FreeDOS." We are able to show creation in 1994, and "commercial" usage (aka Pat's FreeDOS Kernel book, and the FreeDOS website) since 1996. So practically speaking, it would be difficult for someone else to claim "FreeDOS" as their own. But I declared it explicitly in 2001, although I haven't filed with the USPTO (because it's really $$ expensive to do so). There's a note about our trademark on the website, linked in the footer of each page: http://www.freedos.org/trademark/ Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
