copyright notice

[Don Steiny]

In article <8422 at amdcad.UUCP>, phil at amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes:
> In article <3167 at sun.uucp> marcum at sun.uucp (Alan Marcum) writes:
> >From what I recall from oh-so-many moons ago in school, to copyright a
> >work, you must place the appropriate notice on the work, and place a
> >copy of the work in an at least semi-public library (i.e. publish it).
> >This library need not be the Library of Congress.
> 
> It irritates me when people who don't know what they are talking about
> post garbage to the net when they could so easily look it up.
> 
> From "The World Almanac 1986", page 686:
> 
> "... copies or phonorecords of works published in the U.S. with notice
> of copyright are required to be deposited for the collections of the
> Library of Congress. This deposit requirement is not a condition of
> protection, but does render the copyright owner subject to penalties
> for failure to deposit after a demand by the Register of Copyrights."
> 
	There may be such a requirement, but it has nothing
to do with copyrighting a document.  According to "Legal Care
For Your Software," p. 36: "The Copyright offices requests
only the first twenty-five pages and the last twenty-five
pages of the program."

	On p. 37 it says: "If you forget to send the code you
may, theoretically, be liable for a fine.  . . . the fine
is rarely (if ever) imposed . . . 
	
>  (C) 1986 Joe Random is not a valid copyright.
>  Copyright 1986 Joe Random is.
> 
	According to the same book, p. 29:

	The internationally recognized copyright symbox, [circle
with a C in it], should always be the first part of the notice.
Since CRT screens and most dot matrix printers don't have a [circle
with a C in it], you can substitute and use a (C).  The
second part of the notice is the word "Copyright."  Technically
this is unnecessary as long as you have a [circle with a C in it], . . .

-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 
109 Torrey Pine Terrace
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0382