Tim> Ed Hew said:
> I further wonder why one would then bother to put a copyright notice
> into one's document if it defacto already exists, with the exception
> where one wishes to modify the generally implicit copyright.
Tim> Probably to avoid exactly this kind of confusion.
As I recall, not having the little notice on it makes it more
difficult to sue for damages. This comes around on the Net all the
time and this seems to be the consensus answer. I asked our Counsel
about this once and he said the same thing, which is a nice
cross-check. I was actually inquiring of him about the fair-use
policy, which does indeed allow me to make a copy for research
purposes.
I recently wrote a paper with over 60 references and I had copies of
each one made. When you steal from one guy, it's plagiarism; when you
steal from 60, it's research. Now had I just been making copies for
my files, I would have been violating the fair-use rules, but using
the papers as references for my paper made it fair use.
For what it's worth: Anything I write as a US Government employee is
in the public domain. That's how publishers could put out their own
versions of the Meese report on pornography (including the samples)
and the Warren report. They could copyright the cover design, any
introductory material that they wrote, anything else that they added,
but they could not copyright the public domain material. Once it gets
into the public domain it can never leave it.
Regards,
Mary Shafer
-- Mary Shafer DoD #362 KotFR SR-71 Chief Engineer NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA shafer@ferhino.dfrf.nasa.gov Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all." Unknown US fighter pilot
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