Copyright law reply

[Steve Schonberger <microsoft!stevesc@uunet.UU.NET>]

I tried mailing this directly to Kevin, but it bounced.  Since I don't
have the original message to try to redirect the message and it may be
of interest to some people in this newsgroup anyway, I'll just post it,
which I was thinking of anyway.  I haven't received the newsgroup in a
few days, so I don't know if it's repititious.

My apologies for the non-musical content, and to the trashed article
header that will probably end up on this note.

----------

From: microsoft!stevesc
Date: Fri Sep  1 17:04:41 1989
Subject: Re: Moral and legal grounds of copyright law
Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA

>If Kate wants the demos to stay of out the hands of collectors and fans, then
>she'd better get her lawyers warmed up. I'm no lawyer and I don't know if 
>English law if different than American law, but I think the way it works is
>thusly: If I hold a copyright and you violate that copyright and I know it and 
>do nothing about it, then you stand a good chance of succesfully claiming that 
>I have placed my copywritten object into the public domain at which point I
>and you and everyone looses all control over the objects reproduction, use, etc.

I don't know if you're quoting your understanding of English law or U.S. law,
but you're not correct about U.S. law.  First of all, U.S. law has changed a
number of times in recent years.  The current law is virtually the same as
almost all other developed countries.  The previous version was different
though.  The source for my understanding of the laws is an explanation in the
_World Almanac_, and the legal column "Rules of the Game" in _Unix Review_,
both of which I'm paraphrasing by memory rather than looking up right now. 
Trust those publications and my memory as much as you see fit.

The current U.S. (and most common international law) law is based on the
Berne Convention.  The basic idea of this law is that anything gets copyright
protection simply by being written or otherwise recorded.  No notice of any
kind is needed.  However, to prosecute an infringment, it's reccomended or
required (I forget which) that the creator or owner register the copyright
with the government.  That's also required to gain copyright protection in
places that don't follow the Berne Convention (the only important example
of which was the U.S., until recently).  Giving notice of a copyright is
also reccomended, because the penalties for infringing and rewards for
prosecuting an infringer are larger if the infringement is done knowingly,
which is a lot easier to prove if the copyright is marked.

There is not a thing in the law that says that the owner of the copyright
loses the ability to prosecute one instance of infringement, simply by
failing to prosecute another known instance.  Such a reading of the law
wouldn't stand up as an understood part of the law either.  Suppose "A"
made a copy of something and told the copyright owner, and that owner
ignored it.  Then "B" made 10000 copies and the owner found out.  It
would be silly to disallow the owner to prosecute "B", because that
would force the owner to take trivial cases like "A" to court just so
they could take significant cases like "B" to court later.  It's true
that failing to take action against "A" now _might_ prevent the owner
from taking action against "A" (for that instance of copying), but
that's because there is probably a statute of limitations that applies.

The old U.S. law required a writer or owner to place a copyright notice
on any copies, and said that if that owner failed to mark the notice the
work would fall into the public domain, _unless_ the owner failed to mark
it by accident.  In the event of accidentally not marking a copyright, the
owner would lose the ability to prosecute infringement against any copies
made before the accidentally unmarked copies were made.  But marking all
copies made from the time the accident was discovered would restore the
copyright protection from that time on.

The only ways a work can fall into the public domain are:  The time limit
expires.  The work is explicitly released into the public domain.  The
work was created in the U.S. before the U.S. law changed, and it had no
copyright notice for reasons other than oversight.

If you think I'm misstating any of this, feel free to correct me, but
please provide a reference to something at least as concrete as my own
references.  I think I'll post this, if it's not repetitive of lots of
other stuff there.

-- 
	Steve Schonberger	microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net
	"Working under pressure is the sugar that we crave" --A. Lamb