[geeks] RHCE advice

[Mike Meredith]

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:25:50 -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-07-26 at 07:10, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> > IANAL, but to have a copyright on a document/piece of work, you need
> > to asert it by including a magic incantation, similar to:
> > 
> > "(c) 2006, Lionel Peterson, all rights reserved"

It's generally a good ideal to include the copyright slug especially the
'all rights reserved' phrase. It kind of emphasises the point.

> In the USA, you have copyright the moment the work is created, i.e.
> the copyright is an inherent or innate part of the work's existence.

Only after a relatively recent shake-up of the law I believe (to make
US law compatible with the Berne Convention). It's still the case in the
US that registration of a copyright gives you additional rights (such as
being able to obtain punitive damages for copyright violation). This
registration I believe used to be the step necessary to obtain copyright
in the USA.

> However, adding the copyright notice gets you protection in countries
> other than the USA.  I think the "Berne Convention" covers copyright,
> not sure about that.

It is indeed the Berne Convention, but I believe that the copyright
notice is not necessary for a work to be copyrighted internationally
(within countries that sign up to the Berne Convention of course). The
whole point of the Berne Convention is that a work that is copyrighted
in one country is protected by copyright law in another country as if it
were created in that other country.

Of course I'm no lawyer, but I have dealt informally with copyright
issues on a number of occasions.