This isn't my field of law, and copyright is deservedly a specialty unto it's own, but here in the US, and I suspect in most of the rest of the world, putting a c in a circle is pretty much meaningless. Copyright is your legal right to your work. It occurs the moment you create that work. You don't need to do anything to assert copyright. You have that right by default. (Though without taking positive action to assert copyright - by recordation in the main - you may later have more difficulty proving said work is indeed yours, but that's another issue.) You can offer your work for free by if you so choose, for example by posting it on certain websites that offer free music or photos, but the work is still yours and still copyrighted. You are merely waiving any right to royalties from the use of your work. Now, you can (and from a legal point of view should) have your copyright recorded by government entities, traditionally that was the meaning of the c in a circle. The recordation doesn't create the copyright but recordation does create certain legal presumptions and shift certain burdens of proof in case an artist needs to pursue legal action for violation of copyright. Thus recording your copyright is a very valuable thing assuming you have the patience and wherewithal to record a copyright which not everyone does. Do not assume that if a work doesn't have a c in a circle that it's not copyrighted and is available for free use. Assuming that a work is available free of royalties just because it's posted on a website can be a ptential legal minefield. A lot of people don't respect copyright, let alone understand the nuances of copyright law. (I freely admit to being one of the latter if never one of the former.) So you can never be sure if works posted on a website are represented correctly as to their free use. One of the worst problems with music in particular is the issue of public domain. A suprising amount of music is assumed to be in the public domain and used as such when in fact it is still under copyright. Happy Birthday springs to mind. Not so much a problem with lute music, of course. ;) Good websites set up in advance the rules under which photos, music, artwork, poetry or whatever can, or can't, be used by website visitors. Flicker is a decent example. I'm not certain, from what was said below, that FoMRHI is an equally decent example. FoMRHI should spell out in advance and in detail the terms of contribution and use for both sides of the equation, composers/arrangers and musicians alike. Otherwise, I would personally be very hesitant to use their music without contacting the artist first to make sure the music was indeed royalty free. Unless the website stated clearly that music would be free for use if contributors didn't attach a c in a circle, the fact some arrangers didn't use that sign wouldn't necessarily indicate they were forfeiting their royalty rights.
Martyn Hodgson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Following recent communications which mentioned FoMRHI, I contacted Eph Segerman and include the relevant part of his reply below. In short, anything in FoMRHI not specifcally restricted as detailed below seems to be able to be freely reproduced and circulated. MH Ephraim Segerman wrote: Subject: Re: Fwd: FoMRHI From: Ephraim Segerman To: Martyn Hodgson Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:36:22 +0000 All one needs to copyright something that is written is to print the symbol of a C inside a circle. A few contributors to FoMRHI have retained their copyright by doing this, but the vast majority have not. FoMRHI has never claimed copyright on anything it published. So, except for the few copyrighted Comms, all FoMRHI stuff can be duplicated and circulated. There is now a movement to revive FoMRHI, which involves action by the Fellows. Yours, Eph --------------------------------- For ideas on reducing your carbon footprint visit Yahoo! For Good this month. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --------------------------------- Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now. --
