Fwd: question about mailing lists license ,

[Karl Auer]

On Fri, 2009-10-30 at 18:49 -0400, Douglas Pollard wrote:
> The writer of the post owns the copyright, he does not give that away 
> unless it is a registered copyright then he can sell it or give it away.

Copyright varies from country to country - while the US does have a
copyright registry, your work is still copyrighted even if not
registered. You can sell, buy or license works regardless of whether
your work is registered. There may be some advantages to registering you
work, but you don't have to.

> I personally would get the writer of 
> the post to send me a copy with permission to use it.

It depends on what "use" means, but in general - good advice.

> He will always own the copyright for his lifetime plus 100 
> years.

Not always, no. This differs from country to country. The US has
ridiculously long copyright periods; other countries have saner limits,
though the power of major copyright holders (and US blackmail, er,
sorry, "trade agreements") has been pushing those limits further and
further out for decades.

Remember too that copyright does not protect an idea - only the
expression of an idea. If someone describes how to do something, for
example, you can go and use those instructions freely.

Regards, K.

PS: I am not a lawyer.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)

GPG fingerprint: 07F3 1DF9 9D45 8BCD 7DD5 00CE 4A44 6A03 F43A 7DEF

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