> Just out of curiosity -- how many of y'all include copyright
> notices at the end of your FAQs?
I do. It's be kind of silly not to include a copyright notice in the
Copyright FAQ.
> With a copyright notice, you'd at least have more of an obvious
> legal leg to stand on, especially in the case of this guy who quoted
> freely and barely gave anybody credit.
A copyright notice is not necessary for a copyright, for a usenet posting
or anything else. And It's quite clear to me that a usenet posting is
among the "literary and artistic works" as that term is defined in Article
2(1) of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
Works -- it's certainly a "work of authorship" as that term is defined in
the U.S.
All a notice does in the U.S. is prevent the infringer from claiming
"innocent infringement" to mitigate damages. If you omit the notice,
they are permitted to _claim_ innocent infringement, and then they still
have the burden of going on to prove innocent infringement.
I should note that there are some countries that are not members of the
Berne Convention -- those countries may still condition copyright on a
notice. But if you get coverage in all the Berne countries, you've
gotten coverage in enough of the world to protect yourself in just about
any nation a potential infringer would want a market in.
-- Terry Carroll | "Clearly, this invention provides the world's Santa Clara, CA | first weapons simulator for use by motorists." carrollt@netcom.com | - U.S. Patent No. 5,314,371 (May 24, 1994)
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