Xref: utzoo sci.space.shuttle:2088 talk.politics.misc:18241
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
From: greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Internationalist posturings.
Message-ID: <1069@proxftl.UUCP>
Date: 30 Nov 88 00:38:40 GMT
References: <1969@garth.UUCP> <7921@dasys1.UUCP> <1988Nov27.003012.28598@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender)
Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale
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In article <1988Nov27.003012.28598@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>It is also a violation of copyright.  When somebody mails you a letter
>(the law was written with physical letters in mind, but almost certainly
>would be held to apply to electronic ones too), you own the copy that you
>receive, but the *author* owns the copyright unless he specifically
>renounces it or otherwise indicates that the letter is "for publication"
>(e.g. by sending it to a "letters to the editor" address).  You can be
>sued for publishing a private letter without the author's permission.

Well, people can sue you for almost anything these days, but this
notion that a the author of a private letter holds an enforceable
copyright in it simply doesn't hold water -- popular though it is on
the net.

It is true that the author of a work holds a copyright on it just for having
created it, but to enforce that copyright he must perfect it, which he does
by placing a valid copyright notice on it and registering that copyright with
the appropriate authorities.  If you distribute copies without perfecting
your copyright, you don't necessarily lose it, but you cannot move against
an infringer until you *have* perfected it, and you cannot collect any
damages for any infringement made prior to your perfecting your copyright.
-- 
Greg Hullender / 3511 NE 22nd Av./Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33308 / uunet!proxftl!greg

 "People get tired of being trampled on by the iron-shod feet of oppression."
		-- Martin Luther King, Jr.