On Sun, 31 Mar 2013 16:31:43 +0200, Polytropon <free...@edvax.de> wrote:
On Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:39:29 -0400, Joe wrote:
Does one have to file legal paper work with the government to be issued
a copyright on software?
With _which_ government? :-)
Basic understanding of copyright is: The stuff _you_ write
happens "automatically" under _your_ copyright, because you
are the creator. There is nothing you need to do to achieve
the copyright - it's yours by acting. At the moment you
write something like "(C) Joe Sixpack 2012" it's "set in
stone".
There might be other ways to prove (!) copyright, e. g. when
one of your files appears in someone else's work, but now
with the originator line saying "(C) Nick Nosewhite 2013".
In case of a court trial which involves copyright, you can
prove from your CVS "log of creation" (or whatever source
management system or even file system you use) that _you_
have been writing that code, nobody else.
Does any software not having a copyright statement or any license
comments included in the source mean that it's public domain?
I would assume this. Imagine a snippet of code with no author
mentioned in it (or in the source it comes from, or any file
it is accompanied by), how would you be able to conclude
something _else_ than this is public domain with _no_
copyright holder?
I think you are wrong here.
quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_software:
"Under the Berne Convention, which most countries have signed, an author
automatically obtains the exclusive copyright to anything they have
written, and local law may similarly grant copyright, patent, or trademark
rights by default. The Berne Convention also covers programs. Therefore, a
program is automatically subject to a copyright, and if it is to be placed
in the public domain, the author must explicitly disclaim the copyright
and other rights on it in some way."
Note the wording "explicitly disclaim".
While German law has something like a "triviality threshold" which may
well apply to very small code snippets,
i'd say "no included license" by default means "all rights reserved".
Regards,
Michael
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