Re: TI-82 Mac users only
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Re: TI-82 Mac users only
>>2. Anything ever made is copyrighted. A copyright notice helps, and an
>>application to the copyrights office helps even more. However, the
>>only difference it makes is the amount of money you get as
>>compensation in a court case.
>
>WRONG! You can say something is copyrighted but you can't bring the issue
>to court if you haven't registered the copyright with the U.S. government
>(at least U.S. regulations require you to do so). A copyright costs money,
>so most people don't bother with the time consuming process of doing it
>especially for cheap games for the TI-xx calc series.
No! Anything (yes, that is right! ANYTHING) and everything that requires an
amount of creativity (or thinking) is copyrighted, unless the owner of the
copyright gives it to the public domain. This includes anything a jury
would think requires creativity, thinking, or originality (i.e. NOT
copying). The ONLY thing that a copyright notice or a certficate of
copyright would do is allow you a higher compensation if you sued. If I
write a poem on a piece of paper, that poem is copyrighted! It is that
simple. It isn't any different with computer programs. If I was to write a
computer program, it too would be copyrighted. Any computer program is
copyrighted
>I think most of my information has just burst your bubble of security about
>the legality of "copyrighted" programs that haven't been registered with
>the U.S. government. My dad has studied Copyright Law and knows basically
>every legal trick in the book (I learned all I know from him). I know a
>few things about it and from what I can say is that honesty is the key. If
Second hand information huh? Maybe you missed some parts (i.e. most of
it!).
>everybody is honest, and asks permission before they make distribution
>disks or use someone else's source (I failed in this area once and I
>learned the hard way), then the Copyright Law would be worthless. However,
>every human makes mistakes and hopefully some learn from their mistakes.
Honesty is the best policy but not talking about things you don't know about
is a darn good policy too!
P.S. Usually I don't flame but, I can't stand ignorant (look it up -- most
people don't know what it really means) people talking about copyright,
trademark, and patent laws. It just spreads more misinformation and ends up
costing programmers like us money and hard work! People think that they can
copy anything that they want as long as they know that the programmer
doesn't have a certificate of copyright. It makes me sick thinking that a
program someone spend dozens of hours on just gets copied all over the place
without anyone thinking twice about it. You know what, I bet that Microsoft
doesn't register their programs with the copyright office (especially since
you have to include a TON of source code (like a hundred lines from the
beginning of the program and a hundred from the end of the program) which
gets posted and is publicly available!)
Riley McArdle
rileym@geocities.com
http://griffn.base.org/
References: