PE>> Can I stick "copyright Paul Edwards" on the top of it

RS> Nope, you certainly cant do that. Once his rights to it expire, that
RS> doesnt mean you can seize it and claim it as your own. YOU didnt write
RS> it, so its not your work. Or more strictly you can put that on it, but
RS> it means absolutely nothing. And you stand some risk of being done for
RS> deceptive practice, various other bureaucratic hair splitting etc.

RS> And thats precisely why it doesnt work like that, coz it would make
RS> completely null and void the whole spirit of that bit of copyright law,
RS> that its SUPPOSED to expire. Thats the way they decided they want it.

PE> And even if I hadn't changed two words, I should still be able to
PE> do the same,

RS> Nope, not a chance, otherwise, again, the expiry provisions of the
RS> law would be null and void. They are wake up to people like you.

PE> I think you misunderstand what I want to be able to do.

Nope, I understood it fine. Rather novel experience |-)

PE> I want to be able to change two words and copyright the whole document.

Yes, and I was saying you cant coz the REST of the document, APART
from the two words you changed are not YOUR WORK so you have not rights
to it at all, so you cant copyright the rest, coz its not your work.

The original creator of it did once have rights to that work which
expired, but even once the original copyright has expired, its STILL
what he created, not YOUR work.

PE> However, XXX is still available in it's pristine form for
PE> anyone else who wants to use it without my modifications.

Yes, thats is still true. BUT you do not have copyright over the
everything but 2 words in the modified one EITHER, coz its not your
work. Only the two words are and its a tad hard to have an effective
copyright over just two words.

In some ways is very close to the situation where someone takes a
work out of copyright, prints it with say a new introduction. That
introduction is certainly the work of the new printer, BUT not the
rest of the stuff which has had the copyright expire on it. Anyone
can say get a typist to type up the ORIGINAL work, and they are home
and hosed, they can do what they like with that. They just have to
be careful not to include the NEW introduction, coz THAT is still
copyrighted, coz the copyright on that has not yet expired.

PE> I have absolutely no say over what they do with XXX, just what
PE> they can do with my derived version.

In fact the only rights you have is over the TWO words you
added. And its more than a tad difficult to copyright two words.

PE> What I basically want to do is enable people to use a work as
PE> though they had written it themselves.

Yeah, I understood what your were trying to do fine, it just wont
work. Because the bits you DIDNT write are not YOUR work, so you
can NEVER get to own them like that, get to claim them as your own
for the purposes of copyright. Coz they aint YOUR work.

PE> If I write a C program, which has undergone minimal testing and
PE> has lots of bugs in it, and I make it PD, I would expect a commercial
PE> house to be able to fix those bugs (which may involve changing a "1"
PE> to a "2" or something like that, but took a week to find, and not be
PE> in any way obligated to let anyone else have that fix.

Thats a rather more complicated question. Code is rather different to
a book because there isnt necessarily that much unique about code most
of the time. For example many people essentially process the command
line parameters in a rather stylised way you see in lots of code. The
first person to do it like that certainly doesnt own that for 50 years
and no one else can do it like that.

Just like say a bodice ripper novel cant own 'he breathed passionately
all over her as he ripped the clothes from her body' just because his
copyright novel happened to use that particular sentence first.

In your case the question really is quite complicated. If for example
your code was doing something quite fancy, say PKT->QWK conversion,
and just had a bug in it which didnt handle say a dud date properly,
you cant take PD code, fix that date bug, claim you own the whole of
the code as your own just because you fix the bug and stick a copyright
notice on it. Copyright law doesnt let you do that basically.

PE> Even if they distribute the source code to their product,
PE> as some graphics libraries do.

Well, thats a whole nuvver can of worms, stuff which is copyrighted
but you are free to use.

Some people even think that say a Borland compiler which has an example
in the manual illustrating the use of a particular function, Borland
owns that example and you would be in deep shit if you included that
bit of code in code of your own. Its a complete load of crap in fact.

--- PQWK202