Re: Some points on Copyright and infringement

by Thomas Rumley <trumley(at)softhome.net>

 Date:  Thu, 20 Mar 2003 10:24:08 -0500
 To:  hwg-basics(at)hwg.org
 References: 
  todo: View Thread, Original
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Just in case someone isn't clear about copyright here's a quick summary
from about.com<br><br>
<font face="Arial Narrow, Helvetica"><a href="http://webdesign.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.templetons.com%2Fbrad%2Fcopymyths.html" eudora="autourl">http://webdesign.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.templetons.com%2Fbrad%2Fcopymyths.html<br><br></a></font>
<ul>
<li>These days, almost all things are copyrighted the moment they are
written, and no copyright notice is required. <i>This is true regardless
of the medium that it has been recorded in. This is true wether it's a
book, a web page,&nbsp; or simply kept on a 3.5&quot; floppy disk.</i>
<li>Copyright is still violated whether you charged money or not, only
damages are affected by that. 
<li>Postings to the net are not granted to the public domain, and don't
grant you any permission to do further copying except <b>perhaps</b> the
sort of copying the poster might have expected in the ordinary flow of
the net. 
<li>Fair use is a complex doctrine meant to allow certain valuable social
purposes. Ask yourself why you are republishing what you are posting and
why you couldn't have just rewritten it in your own words. 
<li>Copyright is not lost because you don't defend it; that's a concept
from trademark law. The ownership of names is also from trademark law, so
don't say somebody has a name copyrighted. 
<li>Fan fiction and other work derived from copyrighted works is a
copyright violation. 
<li>Copyright law is mostly civil law where the special rights of
criminal defendants you hear so much about don't apply. Watch out,
however, as new laws are moving copyright violation into the criminal
realm. 
<li>Don't rationalize that you are helping the copyright holder; often
it's not that hard to ask permission. 
<li>Posting E-mail is technically a violation, but revealing facts from
E-mail you got isn't, and for almost all typical E-mail, nobody could
wring any damages from you for posting it. The law doesn't do much to
protect works with no commercial value. 
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