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From: sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.sources.d
Subject: Improper usage of Copyright
Message-ID: 
Date: Fri, 22-Aug-86 19:42:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: ukma.4223
Posted: Fri Aug 22 19:42:22 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Aug-86 22:49:23 EDT
Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY
Lines: 28
Xref: mnetor net.legal:3397 net.sources.d:466


I've seen quite a bit of software posted by people obviously confused by
copyright law.  They do not put a copyright notice on their software, and
they include something like this:

	This software is public domain.  You may not sell this for
	profit, etc.

The two statements are, of course, contradictory, since "public domain"
has always meant exactly that.  If something is public domain, I can
copy it, make airplane banners out of it, or sell it at any price I
wish and pocket the profits.

My question is, what is the status of such erroneous postings?  Are they
actually copyrighted, or are they in the public domain?

Sean

FREE ADVICE:
	If you wish to distribute software that you don't want sold for
	a profit, while avoiding the kind of ambiguity that I am addressing, 
	you should clearly copyright your code and include a provisional
	permission for redistribution.
-- 
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Sean Casey                UUCP:  cbosgd!ukma!sean        CSNET:  sean@uky.csnet
University of Kentucky    ARPA:  ukma!sean@anl-mcs.arpa
Lexington, Kentucky     BITNET:  sean@ukma.bitnet