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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!darwin.sura.net!wupost!uunet!decwrl!world!bzs
From: bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: AT&T vs. BSDI --> 4.3BSD-NET2 distribution requires AT&T license!!!
In-Reply-To: jfw@ksr.com's message of 14 Aug 92 14:01:52 EDT
Message-ID: <BZS.92Aug14182819@ussr.std.com>
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References: <166cciINNr2o@agate.berkeley.edu> <l8hhhkINN695@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM>
<14809@ksr.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 23:28:19 GMT
Lines: 31
John Woods brings out a good point that's worth underscoring.
Copyright is not only a binary condition, that is, something is either
copyright or it's not.
Based on how you've treated your copyright there are various shades of
limitations as to what you can do in the event of it being violated.
For starters, if you do not register a copyright with the US Copyright
Office (for US copyrights of course) you are pretty much limited to
cease and desist. Damages become difficult to impossible to sue for
under that law.
There are similar considerations for not handling your copyright
properly, I'm not comfortable enough with the details to try to
outline them.
Cease and desist can of course be powerful (how would you like to be
stuck with a warehouse full of books or whatever?) and can of course
be a basis for negotiating some valuable reconsideration (hey, i'll
give you a $25K if I can sell those books rather than junk them,
deal?), but you still may be very limited in your recourse (we weren't
selling any of those books anyhow, I'll call the recyclers, sorry
about that, <click>.)
--
-Barry Shein
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