Re: logwatch: list of copyright holders

"John Halton" <johnhalton@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:affbfedc0802210300q60dae1cdo92d563d96d604633@mail.gmail.com...
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Michael Below <below@judiz.de> wrote:
>> Am Do 21 Feb 2008 10:25:01 CET
>> schrieb "Giacomo A. Catenazzi" <cate@cateee.net>:
>>
>>
>> > IMHO the patches sent to a upstream author which
>> > doesn't patch the original copyright (adding a name or
>> > a copyright line) should be interpreted as the above case.
>> > IMHO the author implicit acknowledges that the patch is
>> > simple and doesn't include enough intellectual work.
>> > So I interpret the patch as outside copyright laws
>>
>> I would be careful about that. Such a notice isn't required for
>> copyright protection, so it is at least difficult to interpret the
>> absence of a copyright note as a legal declaration about copyright.
>> Plus, I don't think authors can decide whether something is
>> copyrightable (legal systems may differ about this).
>
> Agreed. Under UK law, the threshold for copyright protection is quite
> low, and is an objective test without any need for the author to claim
> copyright or include a copyright notice. IIRC (haven't looked it up)
> an author cannot even disclaim copyright as such - though if the
> author does state that material is public domain and not protected by
> copyright then s/he may be "estopped" from reversing that statement
> later, if people have acted in reliance on it. But the mere absence of
> a copyright notice is highly unlikely to raise an estoppel against the
> author asserting copyright at a later date.

Indeed, all of that is also more or less true in the United States. So,
assuming the lack of a copyright notice means something is questionable at
best,
and quite likely dangerous.

On the other hand, it tends to hint that the work was not that important to
the author, but this is only a tendency, so relying on it is unwise.

IANAL, IANADD.

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