augh I didn't want to click send yet...one more bit of reference... On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Leo Simons <[email protected]> wrote: > http://copyright.gov/title17/92chap4.html
"§ 404. Notice of copyright: Contributions to collective works5 (a) A separate contribution to a collective work may bear its own notice of copyright, as provided by sections 401 through 403. However, a single notice applicable to the collective work as a whole is sufficient to invoke the provisions of section 401(d) or 402(d), as applicable with respect to the separate contributions it contains (not including advertisements inserted on behalf of persons other than the owner of copyright in the collective work), regardless of the ownership of copyright in the contributions and whether or not they have been previously published." IANAL, but I _think_ that's the situation we're describing here. I.e. if HP sues me for infringing copyright on jena, I can't claim I didn't know HP has copyright claims on jena AS LONG AS there is an HP copyright notice in NOTICE. However, if HP removes their copyright notice completely, I could try and base a defence on claiming I simply didn't know there were any HP copyrights on jena. (you should never remove someone else's copyright notice, though per above it can be ok if you move it around.) At the same time, for actual copyright lawsuits the notices don't have to be super-accurate -- as long as they are there no-one can claim they "simply didn't know", but that doesn't mean there is a valid copyright claim. I.e. if I put "copyright 2011 Leo Simons" on jena, then if you download and use jena, and then I sue you, you can't say you didn't know about my copyright claim...but you can still dispute that claim all the same, etc. One more time: IANAL. Above just to maybe help understanding...but you should still apply the policy regardless of my or your understanding :-D cheers, Leo
