Re: FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support Digital Restrictions Management
On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 11:26 PM, The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On 05/19/2014 09:18 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 10:30 PM, Jerry Stuckle
>> <jstuckle@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>> In fact, in the United States, to copyright something you have to
>>> provide a copy of the material to the Copyright Office. So there
>>> is always at least one copy of something available.
>>
>> Are you sure of that? I thought most jurisdictions' copyright laws
>> were such that, in the absence of information to the contrary, any
>> published work should be assumed to be copyrighted.
>
> Once upon a time, you did have to provide a copy of something to the
> Copyright Office to get copyright protection for that thing. I believe
> this is what was known as "registering" the copyright.
>
> Under later revisions to the law (I believe associated with the Berne
> Convention on Copyright), the requirement to register the copyright was
> removed, and all works were held to receive copyright protection
> automatically.
Aye. I don't know about the US, but that was certainly the case in
England (or Great Britain - I'm not sure which) in the late 1800s. One
of my other interests, Gilbert and Sullivan, is notably impacted by
that, as the "license copy" of a play wasn't necessarily identical to
what ended up being performed; to us, a hundred-odd years down the
track, the version registered for copyright gives an insight into the
creators' minds and what got changed at the last minute. But that was
in the bad old days when anyone could go and watch a performance, take
a whole lot of notes, and then go and stage their own pirated version
of HMS Pinafore without paying royalties to the creators (and, worse,
without needing to be at all accurate, which dragged down the
perceived quality - until the official version began to be performed,
and audiences got to hear it done properly). These days, copyright can
be assumed by default, which makes it simpler all round. At least,
that's my non-lawyer "play it safe" understanding.
ChrisA
Reply to: