Steve Dirickson writes:

> A secondary issue is that publishing something that someone else wrote
>  without his/her permission is illegal. Most people don't think about it,
>  but an electronic mail item that I create is a "writing", and is
>  protected by the copyright laws the same as a novel, play, or poem would
>  be. For that matter, even Usenet newsgroup postings and mailing-list
>  postings like this are "writings" to which the originator, unless
>  released or otherwise granted, holds the exclusive right-to-copy (as
>  excepted by the "fair use" provisions).

Unfortunately, that's true only if and only if you put a copyright notice on
the published document, from its very first publication onwards. And even
then, it's not always obvious what part of the document is and is not
copyrighted (the text, the artwork, the typography, the "style", etc.).

As to the USENET, anything that is "published" on the USENET without such an
accompanying copyright mark (along with the specified owner of the copyright)
is inherently and instantly public domain. This is nothing to do with the
medium. When you write to the USENET, you clearly know that you are acting
not only as an author, but also as an independent publisher. If you are
willing to "give away" your viewpoints, your eloquence, and your hard-won
knowledge in a mass distribution, without first copyrighting the material,
you have no later recourse. Copyright laws have always worked this way.

Plagiarism is the only reservation that someone should have. The attribution
of good ideas you find on the Internet to yourself without proper credit is
not illegal, but most people find it quite unethical. In scientific circles,
where "innovation is hard", as Richard Feynman was fond of saying, plagiarism
is the ultimate sin. Proper attribution, on the other hand, is the highest
compliment.

Wirt Atmar

(c) 1997 Wirt Atmar. This document can not be reproduced by any means,
physical, electronic, or photographic, without permission of the author. As
if you cared :-).