On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, Matthew Palmer wrote: > While it's true that all creative works automatically have copyright > held by the author upon creation, this is a different issue. If I rip > off something that has "(C) Sun Microsystems" on it, and get a letter > from J. Random Hacker's landshark requesting cease and desist, I'm > going to laugh at it (or, possibly, get my landshark to write a > laughing letter back), unless there is a lot more evidence to it than > that.
Yeah, but whether joint copyight assignment is a sensible and effective way to control copying is an entirely different question from whether it's legal in the first place. Besides, I'm not sure that "they'll laugh at my first letter!" is a good reason not to do something. People laugh at all kinds of things. Who cares if they laugh? What matters is whether the assignment stands up in court, and that will be pretty much independent of their response to the initial letter. Anyone so easily frightened into observing the terms of your copyright was never such a big problem in the first place. The serious problems are going to be a problem for you and Sun Microsystems regardless of the copyright text. -Mary -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
