On 5/19/2014 9:18 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. ChrisA
Yes and no. While it is true that any intellectual work is copyrighted as soon as it is put into a medium, unregistered copyrights are quite limited. For instance in the United States (and most countries subscribing to the Berne Convention) recognize this, the only recourse someone has of enforcing that copyright is to prevent someone from misusing the work. The copyright holder ends up paying his legal fees in enforcing the copyright.
With registered copyrights, however, the holder has much greater rights - including recovery of legal fees and a penalty for the misuse. This is why most songs, commercial computer programs, etc. are registered.
That's not to say an unregistered copyright is worthless - it is still quite worthwhile in protecting one's assets.
Jerry Jerry