- From: Murray Altheim <murray.altheim@nttc.edu>
- Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 18:55:35 -0400
- To: www-html@www10.w3.org
- Cc: brian@organic.com
>Does anyone want to comment on whether © is legal as a copyright >signature? It's well known that "(c)" isn't, for example. What about >©? > > Brian > >--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-- >brian@organic.com brian@hyperreal.com http://www.[hyperreal,organic].com/ Following are some links regarding U.S. trademark and copyright law, including some text from the document "Copyright Basics". This should give those interested some leads into this important issue: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: http://www.uspto.gov/ Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure's preliminary draft of the report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, a subgroup of the Information Infrastructure Task Force: http://www.uspto.gov/niiip.html The Copyright Office, which is under the Library of Congress, provides similar information on copyrights: gopher://marvel.loc.gov/11/copyright And an excerpt from the document "Copyright Basics": gopher://marvel.loc.gov:70/00/copyright/circs/circ01 ------- start of excerpt ------- HOW TO SECURE A COPYRIGHT Copyright Secured Automatically Upon Creation The way in which copyright protection is secured under the present law is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright (see following NOTE). There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. * * * * NOTE: Before 1978, statutory copyright was generally secured by the act of publication with notice of copyright, assuming compliance with all other relevant statutory conditions. Works in the public domain on January 1, 1978 ( for example, works published without satisfying all conditions for securing statutory copyright under the Copyright Act of 1909) remain in the public domain under the current act. Statutory copyright could also be secured before 1978 by the act of registration in the case of certain unpublished works and works eligible for ad interim copyright. The current Act automatically extends to full term (sectin 304 sets the term) copyright for all works including those subject to ad interim copyright if ad interim registration has been made on or before June 30, 1978. * * * * Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. "Copies" are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. "Phonorecords" are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CD's, or LP's. Thus, for example, a song (the "work") can be fixed in sheet music ("copies") or in phonograph disks ("phonorecords"), or both. If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date. ------- end of excerpt ------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Now it is day. The sun is up. Now is the time for all dogs to get up. "Get up!" It is day. Time to get going. Go, dogs. Go! -- Dr. Seuss Murray M. Altheim, Information Systems Analyst National Technology Transfer Center, Wheeling, West Virginia, USA email: murray.altheim@nttc.edu
Received on Sunday, 14 May 1995 18:56:00 UTC