At 12:24 PM 1/23/94 -0600, Jim choate wrote:
Seems to me that if a person places a post on a public access newsgroup withoug a copyright it automaticaly becomes public domain and they loose all commercial rights to it. I would be interested in a public discussion of thsi point and will move over to the newsgroup you mentioned.
Actually, that statement is quite false. I highly recommend that everyone interested in this topic read Terry Carroll's excellent Copyright FAQ, available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.209], in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ, files part1 - part6. To quote from Copyright-FAQ part2:
2.3) I just wrote a great program/novel/song/whatever. How can I get a copyright on it?
Good news. You already have. In the United States, as in most nations, a work is copyrighted as soon as it is created:
Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. 17 U.S.C. 102(a).
and,
A work is "fixed" in a tangible medium of expression when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration. 17 U.S.C. 101.
What this means in simple terms is that as soon as you've created your original work, it's copyrighted. Because of the "either directly or with the aid of a machine or device" provision, it doesn't matter whether you've printed it out, or if it's only on your hard drive or floppy disk.
You don't need any special formalities, such as registering the work with the Copyright Office, or providing a copyright notice (notice stopped being a requirement when the U.S. signed the Berne Convention and enacted Berne Convention Implementation Act in 1988; see section 4.1 for more information).
Howevever, just because any posting you made after 1988 is automatically copyrighted by you does not mean that you still can't put it on your CD: To quote from Copyright-FAQ part3:
3.8) Are Usenet postings and email messages copyrighted?
Almost certainly. They meet the requirement of being original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression (see section 2.3). They haven't been put in the public domain; generally, only an expiration of copyright or an unambiguous declaration by an author is sufficient to place a work into public domain.
However, at least with Usenet postings, there are two doctrines which probably allow at least some copying: fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9) and implied license.
Whether a particular use of a Usenet posting is a fair use is, as always, a very fact-specific determination. However, it's probably safe to say that it's a fair use if the use was not commercial in nature, the posting was not an artistic or dramatic work (e.g.,, it was the writer's opinion, or a declaration of facts, and not something like a poem or short story), only as much of the posting was copied as was necessary (e.g., a short quotation for purposes of criticism and comment), and there was little or no impact on any market for the posting.
A similar argument can be made for quoting of private email messages. Of course, revealing the contents of a private email message could run afoul of any of a number of non-copyright laws: defamation, invasion of privacy, and trade secrecy, to name a few. So even if you won't be violating any copyright laws, you should consider other factors that may expose you to legal liability before revealing a private message's contents.
Proponents of the implied license idea point out that Usenet postings are routinely copied and quoted, and anyone posting to Usenet is granting an implied license for others to similarly copy or quote that posting, too. It's not clear whether such implied license extends beyond Usenet, or indeed, what "Usenet" really means (does it include, for example, Internet mailing lists? Does it include netnews on CD-ROM?). If a posting includes an express limitation on the right to copy or quote, it's not at all certain whether the express limitation or the implied license will control. No doubt it depends on the specific facts. For example, was the limitation clearly visible to the person who did the copying? Was the limitation placed such that it would be visible only after the person who did the copying invested time and money to get the posting, believing it to be without any limitation?
With private email messages, a copier who relies solely on the implied license argument will probably lose, since it's hard to argue that by sending the private message to a limited audience, the sender intended for it to be copied and quoted. For email messages to a public mailing list, the implied license argument may still be sound.
These theories are largely speculative, because there has been little litigation to test them in the courts. As a practical matter, most postings, with a small number of notable exceptions, are not registered with the Copyright Office. As such, to prevail in court, the copyright holder would need to show actual damages (see section 2.5). Since most of these cases will result in little or no actual damage, no cases have been be brought; it's simply too expensive to sue for negligible damages.
There is quite a bit of discussion on this topic in misc.legal newsgroup, as well as in the lists faq-maintainers@mit.edu and cni-copyright@cni.org. ..Christopher Allen ..Consensus Develoment Corporation ..4104-24th Street #419 ..San Francisco, CA 94114-3615 ..(415) 647-6384 Fax ..(415) 647-6383 Voice ..email: consensus@netcom.com ..mosaic frontpage: .."ftp://netcom.com/pub/consensus/www/ConsensusFrontDoor.html"