On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 10:38:10AM +0200, Arnoud Galactus Engelfriet wrote: > Andrew Suffield wrote: > > Actually the real law says "may" and "shall". The "must" part is > > another invention of the US Copyright Office. > > > > (Title 17, Chapter 4, Section 401 (a) and (b)) > > That says that you MAY include a coypright notice as defined in > section 401(b). If you choose to do so, then it MUST be <snip> You're doing it too. I see no "MUST" anywhere in section 401. Please constrain yourself to things which are actually part of the law. > Section 401(d) is the key here, I think. It provides a certain > advantageous effect in a lawsuit, but only if you use the > 'notice of copyright in the form and position specified by this > section'. And section 401(b) specifies the form as requiring > 'c-in-a-circle', "Copyright" or "Copr.". > > So while you can put any notices you want on your copies, you > do not obtain any benefits from the statute by doing so. > > Now, it could be that there is some US precedent that provides > other reasons why a defendant's claim of innocent infringement > is to be given no weight. But the statute only talks about > 'c-in-a-circle', "Copyright" or "Copr.". However, there is no statement that forming the notice by using the sequence "(c)" is invalid or would not be counted as equivalent. Again, I am not claiming that it has equivalent status in law. Rather, I am saying that the statement "Using (c) instead of circle-C or 'Copyright' renders your notice invalid" has no basis in law either. [Which is why I asked for precedent in the first place - I checked the US code, the Berne convention, and the UCC, and found no evidence to support this position. I had expected there to be some backing to the statement, but it appears it is merely enthusiastic speculation.] -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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