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
 PE>> to 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.

I think you misunderstand what I want to be able to do.  I want to
be able to change two words and copyright the whole document.
However, XXX is still available in it's pristine form for anyone
else who wants to use it without my modifications.  I have
absolutely no say over what they do with XXX, just what they can
do with my derived version.

What I basically want to do is enable people to use a work as
though they had written it themselves.  If I write a C program,
which has undergone minimal testing and has lots of bugs in it,
and I make it PD, I would expect a commercial house to be able
to fix those bugs (which may involve changing a "1" to a "2" or
something like that, but took a week to find, and not be in any
way obligated to let anyone else have that fix.  Even if they
distribute the source code to their product, as some graphics
libraries do.  BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

--- Mksmsg