Re: [vox] Disturbing copyright

["Richard S. Crawford" <rscrawford@mMAPSossroot.com>]

At 11:32 AM 9/20/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
>
> > can that be right?  what about text that has no copyright (like this one).
> > i thought that copyright took place when you place the copyright notice on
> > the text.
>
>You could not copyright something that was authored by someone else
>under a contract (as books are).
>Public domian does not work that way. It may very well be that the
>galley/manuscript was/is copyright an earlier date and that the print
>run left the press sooner than expected, and was released with the cp
>date unchanged.

Unless the text you're interested in actually says "Public Domain" on it, 
you probably should assume that it is protected under copyright law.  Text 
which is older than fifty years old is often in the public domain, but 
that's not necessarily true, since a dead author's estate can still retain 
the rights to a published work.  This is why "Lord of the Rings" is still 
protected by copyright law, although "David Copperfield" and "King Lear" 
are not.


> > really?  that's even more odd, since music is usually written a 
> considerable
> > amount of time before the artist even commits the work to tape...
>
>But that materiual still has to be run through a music rights group
>(i.e. SOCAN, ASCAP) otherwise its just shit you wrote on a napkin or
>music sheet somewhere.

No, no, no.  As soon as the music is written down on a napkin or a music 
sheet somewhere, it becomes protected under copyright law.  You can't grab 
someone else's sheet music, and create a music file and copyright it first 
simply because they haven't completed the score.

The registration of a copyrighted work is different, but all it means is 
that the government "officially" recognizes the copyright on your work, 
giving you protection under the law when if you choose to challenge someone 
else's unauthorized duplication or redistribution of your work.




>z


Sliante,

Richard S. Crawford (mailto:rscrawford@mossroot.com)
http://www.mossroot.com/
AIM: Buffalo2K
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