Re: [dvd-discuss] Bunner wins DeCSS trade secret appeal

["Michael A Rolenz" <Michael.A.Rolenz(at)aero.org>]

That's where I think the 1976 Copyright act created an enormous 
administrative blunder by not requiring copyright notice be affixed. The 
copyright notice is not a protection of the author but an indication when 
the work enters the public domain (Date + N years). By eliminating it, 
that changes a simple system to a complex and cumbersome one worse than 
doing a title search on a piece of REAL property. At least there proper 
documents must be lodged with the local authorities and up the governement 
chain. This leaves copyright up to the whims of whomever happens to be 
holding it.....OK....a question...what is "IT" there. Without a notice or 
registration how do I determine the copyright date of anything? How do you 
fix a date? Does it come from the first time that Thomas Hardy sat down 
and started "A saturday afternoon was approaching the time of twilight..." 
<That's off an Monty Python record  or maybe a skit> or the time he wrote 
"The End" and put the pen down....or how about rough drafts....Tolkien 
spent years working on LOTR and I haven't even bothered buying the earlier 
drafts.

The original intention of copyright it to protect published works. If the 
intention is to protect the writings of authors, then another vehicle 
should be used. As I posted earlier, the UTSA seems to be a pretty good 
one (although there may be some quirks there that I don't appreciate). I 
can't think of anything more deserving of trade secret protection than the 
manuscript of an author during its creation or upon its completion.




"Peter D. Junger" <junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu>
Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
11/05/01 06:02 PM
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        Subject:        Re: [dvd-discuss] Bunner wins DeCSS trade secret appeal


Noah silva writes:

: 
: 
: On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Michael A Rolenz wrote:
: 
: As soon as you publish
: something with no copyright notice, it loses any copyright status.

That statement is false.  Copyright notices are not required under
the 1976 Copyright Act.  A work is protected by copyright as soon as it
is written down---``fixed''---in a tangible medium of expression and
it remains copyrighted after publication.


--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
 EMAIL: junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu    URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu 
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