From: deadman%garnet.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ben Haller)
Subject: Re: Postings on sci.virtual-worlds and Copyright Protection
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1991 13:53:05 GMT
Organization: Stick Software



In article <1991Aug5.191444.12583@milton.u.washington.edu> cyberoid@milton.u.
washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes:

>It's been brought to my attention, as moderator, that material which has
>been posted to sci.virtual-worlds is beginning to show up in various
>commercial books and journals.  As a result, if you post an item here,
>you may have the strange experience of seeing your thoughts copyrighted
>by someone else.  There is no nefarious intent on the part of the publish-
>ers, who are just protecting their own work.  But your ideas may
>inadvertently become others' property.
>
>My advice:  If you are posting material which reflects your own special
>perspective on an issue, or publicly discussing a concept or topic to
>which you wish to retain proprietary rights -- or just want to keep your
>ideas free for others to duplicate without question -- please place a
>copyright notice in your signature or in the body of the posting.

  My understanding of copyright law is that putting a copyright notice on a
work only serves to make it easier to prove that the author's intention was
not to place the material in the public domain or otherwise give up their
rights to the work.  That is, if there is no copyright notice, it is still
copyrighted - that's automatic.  Since this group is archived, the auther
of a message could easily prove that their posting had appeared before
someone else's subsequent use of their idea, and so they would win the case
in a court of law.

  Certainly putting a notice on a message will reinforce the poster's
ability to prove that they hold the copyright to the posting; it will also
serve to alert reprinters that the poster may have an objection to their
message being reprinted.  So in these respects it's a good idea.  On the
other hand, neither I nor most anyone else, I image, wants to have to read
a copyright notice on every message posted.  That would be tedious, to say
the least.

  All of the above comments are my personal opinions; I am not a lawyer,
and the above is not meant to represent legal counsel of any kind.  It
seems quite possible that the copyright laws regarding something like
readnews postings may be different from what I think they are.

  In particular, it may be that when one posts, one is implicitly giving up
one's copyright, since it is clear that one's post is immediately
electronically "reprinted" without explicit permission and resent all over
the world.  If this is the case, it may be that even explicitly placing a
copyright notice on a message has no effect on the status of the message:
perhaps any and all postings become public domain simply by the nature of
the medium.

  This really needs a lawyer to post.  My main point is: it's a complex
issue, and probably the best idea of all is: if you want to retain the
rights to an idea, don't post it.

-Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)
"See me a big woman, big woman look how you dance
 See me a big woman, big woman caught in a trance" - Peter Gabriel