As an aspiring liar --- ummm--- lawyer.. I have some knowledge about the copyright thing. I have had one class in it after all. Anyway, here's the deal: Copyrights are generated in the instant that you create a particular creative work. You don't have to register it, but doing so will discourage others from copying your work, since it is assumed that after registering a copyright it becomes public knowledge. BYU has no rights to your copyrighted work, but on any patentable material they do have certain power. If you want to patent an idea, you MUST list all persons that have contributed to the development of said idea. In the case of corporations, if you used the knowledge gained ONLY from that corporation (with the exception of schools, obviously) and/or used the facilities of that corporation to further your idea, then you MUST list the corporation as a contributer. In the case of BYU, unless you prove that you came up with an idea on your own and did not develop it with BYU's help, then they can claim sovereignty over the patentable material. FOR EXAMPLE:
Suppose that you came up with some great new shell script (for some odd reason). You decide that you can market this process, and decide that because of the open nature of the shell script, you would like your idea protected for a certain amount of time so that you can try your luck in the business world. You apply for a patent, but BYU alleges that you used campus machines to write the code. All you have to do is to show that you COULD have come up with the idea without BYU's machines or help, and that their contribution was minimal and coincidental at best. This is not hard considering that we all have some sort of *NIX on our machines. Then the burden falls on BYU to prove that you HAD to have their help in order to develop the idea. If they cannot prove it, you get sole rights to the patent. When it comes to copyrights, BYU can not take a copyright away from you unless you specifically and knowingly grant them this right. This usually happens if you publish something in a BYU journal or something like that. Other than that even your term papers are copyrighted by you and any other person who wishes to cite it must cite YOU as the author, not BYU. Hope this helps Tim Blalock [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://phantom.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
