Re^4: What qualifies as copyrighted material?

You can loose a U.S. copyright if you don't "adequately" protect it, so their future ownership can be weakened every time they say "sure no problem".

No, you're confusing copyright with trademark. Trademark "cease-and-desist" is an essential part of the game, even if you wanna be a nice guy/gal/company. Copyright, on the other hand, requires no such demonstration of ongoing enforcement. You can ignore 99 violations, and on the 100th one, get real nasty, and it's no problem.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

Comment on Re^4: What qualifies as copyrighted material?

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Re^5: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by rodion (Chaplain) on Jul 30, 2006 at 10:38 UTC
I wasn't thinking of trademark actually. If I'm wrong, it's from information about copyright. You and chromatic have no doubt had more input from lawers who should know, so your info is the better bet, but just for completeness I'll pass on the info I'm working from. It's from NEC v. Intel and from theater, and I'll tuck it in a readmore so it doesn't clutter people's screens. (Of course, feel free to skip the whole post if it's gotten too OT and obscure to retain interest.) Read more... (3 kB)	[reply]
Re^6: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by merlyn (Sage) on Jul 30, 2006 at 11:15 UTC
My read is that the NEC v Intel is arguing about the presence of the copyright notice, which doesn't affect copyright status, but rather whether you can collect statutory damages as well as actual damages. All creative works are "born copyrighted" these days. As for the Hal Holbrook case, I could explain that as not wanting to dilute the value of the material. For example, if 1000 people started presenting the llama class for free, the value of having a certified Stonehenge instructor do it for hire would diminish. Neither of these cases are about sending out a "cease and desist" order when you see your copyright being violated. But that's precisely what you must do when you see trademark being violated, because it's not the mark itself that you care about, but the association of the mark with a particular company. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.	[reply]
Re^6: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 30, 2006 at 16:54 UTC
She said Hal Holbrook would be obligated by contract to refer such a question to his agent, and his agent would have to say no, to protect Hal Holbrook's future rights to the material, even though the audience was small and he would want to say yes to support something which could be seen as a tribute and was cerainly no competition. I don't know the details of the contract, but otherwise your actress friend was wrong (or at least working from some reading of copyright which I have never officially encountered in practice).	[reply]