> Agreed,
>
> "In all countries that are members of the Berne Convention, copyright
> is automatic and need not be obtained through official registration
> with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible
> form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing,
> sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the
> copyright holder, or rightsholder, is entitled to enforce his or her
> exclusive rights."
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Obtaining_copyright
Correct. Authors have 3 choices:
- Declare it "Public Domain", effectively turning off the Berne
rules. That is a legal declaration.
- Use a copyright statement to grant some rights (Berne defaults
to the author -- it "fails closed"; so the author MUST grant
rights). That is a legal declaration.
- Do nothing, and it is not free.
Unfortunately Blah blah blah on some web site falls into the
latter category. It is not a legal declaration.
Of course someone can read it, learn the device, and write their
own code. That is entirely outside the scope of copyright.
