On Thu, 17 Oct 1996, Steve Reeves wrote: > Just as a miscellanious-useless piece of information.. that idea has > actually been around a while and is called a "Poor Man's Copyright" and > offers less protection than a "real" one. [I dunno the differences, but I > read it once on a web page that talked about the whole Internet-copyright > thing TSR started up a few years back when they realized people on the > Internet/BBSes were using 'copyrighted' terms like the word 'Dungeons' and > 'Dragons' .. heh.. they seemingly ignored a court order to stop that > foolishness.. actually, I'm not to sure what happened.. I just know TSR is > still on that wierd power trip] :> Mailing yourself something is not a copyright. It's a method of proving that you had it before someone else. It's certainly far from fool-proof but that's not the point. Everything is copyright unless you EXPLICITLY *SAY* that it isn't. You do not need to go through any method to copyright, you don't need to put Copyriht 1996 by <whatever> nor All rights reserved. As long you don't say, "this is public domain," it's copyright. And TSR never tried to copyright words -- you can't copyright words. I wouldn't doubt that they attempted to trademark some ordinary, every-day words. (BTW, I mean that I can't copyright the word, "I," and make all the people that ever say, "I," pay me royalities) TSR is still making a foolish attempt at regulating everything that ever came from their brain and has reappeared somewhere else. For instance, "Drow," is not against the law to use, but a Drow with a specific eye color, hair color, skin color, living place, etc. that matches those of the drows in TSR's impl- imentation is. TSR attempts to copyright everything; they don't realize that you can't. <*=-+Daniel+-=*> "Forgive me father, for I am sin." +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ: | | http://cspo.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Circle/list_faq.html | +-----------------------------------------------------------+
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