Book People Archive

Re: copyright



If memory serves, wasn't there a new addition to copyright law in the 
last 15 years that made it illegal if the copyright notice was altered 
or removed? For example, changing the copyright date to a different 
year, on purpose, or removing it completely, so people might think a 
work is in the PD?

Could this also be applied to sites or products that stick their 
copyright notice on text that is in the public domain, not adding 
anything new or unique? By placing a new copyright statement (new year, 
person who owns the copyright, etc.) in an etext, they are 
misrepresenting the true copyright status of the work, ie that it is 
actually in the PD, and has lost all copyright protection?

I don't have a problem with a copyright statement like: "All formatting 
and additional hyperlinked metadata (c) so-n-so inc." It's a pet peave 
of mine when someone puts up a word-for-word scanned copy of a book and 
claims copyright for the whole thing.

Ryan

----- Original Message -----
From: Rod Hay <rodhay@[redacted]>
Date: Tuesday, May 1, 2001 3:45 pm
Subject: Re: [BP] copyright

> One can put a copyright notice on anything. That does not mean 
> that it
> will stand up in court. Or that the courts will even listen to a 
> complaint.