On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 10:24:30AM +0800, Dean Michael C. Berris wrote: > Now I am enlightened. :) I learned something new today! ;)
That's good to hear. ;) > > Rafael 'Dido' Sevilla wrote: > > > >It's a question of the government's balancing the public's sacrificing > >its right to free speech to give incentives to the people who create > >music, novels, computer software, and other similar things. An author > >does not have a natural right to her creations as you seem to think. > >The copyright is created only by law. > > > > So I need to apply for a copyright as an author, or can I just slap a > copyright onto my work right before I publish it? After the copyright > comes the license which specifies the terms of use for the product right? > That depends on the jurisdiction. For signatories of the Berne convention, such as the Philippines and in most other places in the world, copyright is automatic. A work is automatically assumed to be copyrighted unless its copyright can be shown to have expired (fat chance in this day of ever lengthening copyright terms) or if the author has specifically disclaimed copyright in writing, making it a public domain work. However, if you are interested in prosecuting potential copyright violations, a copyright registration will make things a lot easier. That's the reason the FSF is so tight about copyright assignments for official GNU projects. It prevents questions during infringement litigation as to who actually holds the copyright. As for licenses, well, the license is entirely optional. Without an attached license, it is assumed that you want "all rights reserved" andthen only standard copyright law applies and only you have the rights to distribute copies, perform the work, make modifications to the work, and so forth. -- The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. http://stormwyrm.blogspot.com/ -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
