frank Th. wrote: > Well, I'm not a "real" lawyer - anymore, anyway. And I never did > Intellectual Property Law, so I don't know much about copyright.
I did, why I know a litlle about it. >BUT, you're right, Len, Copyright means nothing if it's not defended. But it does! Every now and then, especially when I ask myself about the value in my shooting, I tell myself - "Well, at least I have made myself all these (copy)rights, and there is no one in the whole wide world who can take these rights away from me without my saying so..." Makes me feel kind of...well, worth at least something, even if it's mostly theoretical... :) > I don't think that failure to "enforce" a copyright equals abandonment, > though. I think you are right. > It runs the full 25 years (or whatever it is in various jurisdictions), Well, you already indicated that you haven't kept yourself updated: It's 70 years nowadays! :) (From the time of passing of the copyright owner.) (And these rules are getting globally adopted and harmonized.) > and can be enforced at any time, as far as I know. I think that you are right. > As mentioned below, however, why would Pentax want to enforce it? > First, since they aren't profiting from distributing manuals, they've > suffered no damages, so why sue? They could get a restraining order or > injunction against the guy, but to what end? I suspect it's no skin off > their nose if someone sells their manuals, even at a small profit. Hey, > if it means that owners of older Pentaxes can enjoy their cameras that > much more, it's actually to Pentax' benefit that these are being > distributed. You know, if they (consumers) are happy with their old > Pentaxes, they might buy new ones... Agreed. Tom R. wrote: > I am not an attorney, like you Frank, but I believe under the new copyright > law failure to defend is just considered defacto permission. I believe this is a misconception, even of U.S. law (However I may have missed something). It is up to you as a copyright owner to decide to what extent you want to enforce it, or not. As long as you don't enforce it, you are only doing just that - not enforcing it. This however does not equate permission in a legal sense. The full copyright stays with you until you explicitly transfer it in some way and extent. (It is true that a failure to act in many cases may have legal implications, and regarding copyrights there may be particular circumstances where a failure to act may be of some value regarding the determening of a defendant's "good faith", but this wouldn't constitute "permission", unless explicitly granted.) Lasse - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
