Re: web hesitant

On Thu, 7 Mar 1996, cmcgarry[_at_]ix.netcom.com (Charles McGarry) wrote:
>
> Just write out the words "Copyright 1996 by Vita Mindich. All rights
> reserved." You'll have all the legal protection you need. Granted, it
> is easy to copy things off the net, but it's also easy to copy things
> in print. You'll just have to be on the look-out for infringing uses.

As a matter of clarification, the work is copyrighted with or without the copyright notice. Under current U.S. copyright law, the sole legal effect of a copyright notice is that, if someone infringes from a copy that has a notice, the infringer cannot claim "innocent infringement" in mitigating his or her damages. Of course, the notice also has the value of reminding a reader that the work is copyrighted.

The phrase "All Rights Reserved" is now without any legal meaning. It comes from 1911 Buenos Aires Convention on Literary and Artistic Copyrights. The Buenos Aires Convention, though, has been superseded as far as the U.S. is concerned: the U.S. now has reciprocal multilateral copyright relations with every signatory of the Buenos Aires Convention, either through the Universal Copyright Convention (which does not require the "All Rights Reserved" notice) or the Berne Convention (which prohibits a nation from requiring it). "All Rights Reserved" is more of a tradition than anything else.

Terry Carroll
<carroll[_at_]tjc.com> Received on Tue Mar 12 1996 - 05:15:27 GMT