[Wikipedia-l] What would Richard Stallman say? (IP users)

Mon Feb 23 21:54:53 UTC 2004

At 08:21 PM 2/23/04 +0100, Talthen wrote:
> > Whether the writer of the text is anonymous or not should have no
> > effect on these issues.  The writer holds the copyright unless it is a
> > work made for hire.
>Writer owns the copyright forever no matter what. Even if you made smth for
>hire, you still owns the copyright. Copyright is smth you can't sell, can't
>buy, can't lose. "Copyright by John Smith" means exactly: "John Smith has
>made this". It's just to state the fact.

I am not a lawyer, but I think you're confusing moral rights--specifically,
the right to be identified as the author/artist/creator--with copyright, which
is the right to *control who makes copies of a document*.

Under US law, anything made by someone as an agent of the US government--
that is, as part of their jobs, not, say, a poem or novel written on their own
time--is in the public domain. British law makes equivalent work done for
the British government under copyright by the government. I don't know what
Polish law is.

For the most part, copyright is treated like other property, which means it
can be sold, given away, or inherited. The Beatles couldn't stop Nike from
using their song "Revolution" in a commercial because they had sold the
rights to the song--but they could prevent the use of their recording, because
they hadn't sold those rights.

Also, in theory most copyrights expire. (I say "in theory" because Congress
and Parliament keep extending the dates, so the expirations aren't actually
being reached. And most because there's a specific exception in UK law for
"Peter Pan", which belongs to Great Ormond Street Hospital in perpetuity.)
No royalty payments depend on the arguments over whether Shakespeare
really wrote Hamlet.

Vicki 