On 9/2/07, Dave Anderson <dave@daveanderson.com> wrote:

quoted text
> IIRC this is true for any country which has adopted the Berne
> Convention, which is currently almost every country which has any
> copyright law in place.  It includes the U.S.

Yes.  For the dimwits pontificating on this useless thread who can't
be bothered to check facts on their own, here's the relevant text
(http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html):

"Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in
fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately
becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the
author or those deriving their rights through the author can
rightfully claim copyright...

"The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently
misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the
Copyright Office is required to secure copyright.

"The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U.S. law,
... Use of the notice may be important because it informs the public
that the work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright
owner, and shows the year of first publication. Furthermore, in the
event that a work is infringed, if a proper notice of copyright
appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant in a
copyright infringement suit had access, then no weight shall be given
to such a defendant's interposition of a defense based on innocent
infringement in mitigation of actual or statutory damages..."

"Copyright is a personal property right,..."

"Any or all of the copyright owner's exclusive rights or any
subdivision of those rights may be transferred, but the transfer of
exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and
signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly
authorized agent. Transfer of a right on a nonexclusive basis does not
require a written agreement."

"Transfers of copyright are normally made by contract..."

"In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to
make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright.
However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection..."

I had thought that the only remedy against infringement is legal
action by the injured party.  Law enforcement doesn't get involved,
normally, since it's a civil matter.  However, it turns out that isn't
quite true.  Check this out
(http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html):

"(c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with fraudulent
intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the
same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with
fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public
distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person
knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500."

"(d) Fraudulent Removal of Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with
fraudulent intent, removes or alters any notice of copyright appearing
on a copy of a copyrighted work shall be fined not more than $2,500."

That's criminal infringement, folks.  A federal crime.

quoted text
>From which we can conclude, among other things:

  1)  appearance of the copyright _notice_ on BSD or any other code is
irrelevant.  The creator owns the copyright from the get-go.  Removing
a copyright notice has no legal effect, although it's easy to imagine
a practical effect, to wit, a good lawyer could use it to show malice
and win a larger settlement.  Although it's possible that licensing
terms affect this; this is where we should all shut up and ask Real
Lawyers.

  2)  nonexclusive transfer of rights is "normally" a matter of
contract law; however, my understanding is whether software licensing
falls under contract law is a murky area in the law right now.

  3)  the original author of the code in question might well be able
to seek criminal charges against the people who removed the license.

This "Rui" is obviously a troll; can we please stop taking the bait
and bring this thread to a close?