I sent this to the list a couple days ago and haven't seen it
show up. So I'm sending it again, assuming the first was lost.
Sorry if this shows up twice.
I have some questions regarding the notice of copyright. According to the Copyright Office Circular #1, U.S. works published after March 1, 1989 do not have to have a copyright notice to be protected. So after this date, one can no longer assume that an unmarked U.S. document is not copyrighted. It was my understanding that this change was due to the U.S. joining the Berne Convention.
I thought this was fairly straightforward but later in this same circular under International Copyright a reference is made to both Berne and Universal Copyright Convention (UCC). It says works protected under UCC are supposed to carry a UCC copyright notice. This seems to contradict the change in U.S. law requiring no marking. So what is the correct answer for U.S. documents?
My second question is regarding copyrighted works from other countries. Are notices required or not? If I have a document from a European country with no copyright notice, can I assume it is not copyrighted? I have a customer who feels he can legally copy such unmarked documents.
Anyone out there who can clarify this for me?
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