4 ms·
This article got it almost right. Copyright notices aren't required but are generally recommended because they prevent an "innocent infringer" defense. Basica
by thosss 16y ago
This article got it almost right. Copyright notices aren't required but are generally recommended because they prevent an "innocent infringer" defense. Basically, courts will be unwilling to reduce damages if infringer argues that he/she didn't know the work was copyrighted.
Also, in the U.S. under federal law, copyright isn't granted upon creation of a work but rather upon its fixation. So thinking up a poem and speaking it isn't enough; you actually need to write it down or record it.
- tzs 16y agoI wonder what happens in this case: 1. You think up a new poem, and speak it at open mic night at a club. No one is recording, so there is no fixation. 2. Someone else hears your poem, goes home, and writes it down from memory. That's not fixation, since 17 USC 101 defines one of the elements of fixation as being by or under the authority of the author. So, the work is still not fixed, so copyright has not yet attached. 3. That person starts making and selling copies of your poem. 4. You finally write down your poem. It's now fixed, and copyright attaches. I would presume that you can now stop that other person, via copyright law, from making any more copies. Is there any case, though, for damages from the copies that were made and sold before #4? Can you prevent the distribution of the copies #3 has already made by not sold? Can you prevent the people who have bought copies already from reselling them, or does first sale apply? (First sale only applies to copies that were lawfully made and so usually does not apply to works that were not authorized, but in this case the work was not under copyright when the copies were made so I would think they would count as being lawfully made).