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----------------- In Summary ---------------------------
These days, almost all things
are copyrighted the moment they
are written, and no copyright
notice is required.
Copyright is still violated
whether you charged money or not,
only damages are affected
by that.
Postings to the net are not
granted to the public domain, and
don't grant you any permission
to do further copying except
*perhaps* the sort of copying
the poster might have expected
in the ordinary flow of
the net.
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.
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.
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.
Don't rationalize that you
are helping the copyright holder;
often it's not that hard
to ask permission.
Posting E-mail is technically
a violation, but revealing
facts from E-mail isn't,
and for almost all typical E-mail,
nobody could wring any damages
from you for posting it.
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Permission is granted to freely copy this
document in electronic form, or to print for
personal use. If you had not seen a notice
like this on the document, you would have to
assume you did not have permission to copy it.
This document is still protected by you-know-
what even though it has no copyright notice.
It should be noted that the
author, as publisher of an
electronic newspaper on
the net, makes his living by
publishing copyrighted material
in electronic form and has
the associated biases.
However, DO NOT E-MAIL HIM FOR LEGAL
ADVICE; for that use other
resources or consult a lawyer.
Also note that while most
of these principles are universal
in Berne copyright signatory
nations, some are derived from
Canadian and U.S. law.
This document is provided to clear
up some common misconceptions
about intellectual property
law that are often seen
on the net. It is not intended to
be a complete treatise on
all the nuances of the subject.
More about copyright:
http://www.clari.net/brad/copymyths.html