On Tuesday 09 January 2001 12:46 am, Daniel A. Koepke wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Seyne wrote:
> > Is it a moral or a legal issue?
>
> Both.
>
> > CircleMUD itself, I know, is copyrighted.
>
> Everything is copyrighted unless you specifically and explicitly put it in
> the public domain. Putting a copyright notice on something does not make
> it copyrighted -- the thing is copyrighted as soon as you write it.
>
> > But what about the changes made?
>
> The new code belongs to the person that wrote it. It is, therefore,
> copyright to them, unless they explicitly give away those rights.
Although some people may find that any code they write is actually the
property of the company they work for (a lot of contracts are even more
extreme than just code copyrights). This is very common within the IT market
place.
I believe that all code written should contain a:
copyright 'year[s]' 'person/company'
or
parts copyright 'year[s]' 'person/company'
string. Certainly that's what I understand that the company lawyers said.
(note that if you want the true answer talk to a lawyer) However any
explicit mention of a name etc on code can class as copyright, IE one line
changes that are tagged eg:
GET_HIT(ch) += 100 /* Chris Gilbert, 2001-01-09, up the players hp */
counts as copyright to me :)
If you want the true legal answer talk to a lawyer, unless anyone on the list
is a copyright lawyer we can only give what we believe is our idea of the
copyright laws.
Chris
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