RE: [APD] Microwaving water for water changes a bad thing?

["Richard J. Sexton" <richard at aquaria_net>]

>>Maybe not, it depends on the agreement signed by both parties. TFH 
>>
>>for example, is granted a "non-exclusive right to redistriute" copyright
>>which in plain English means both TFH and the author can do what they
>>want with it. Anything. 
>
>Which is an unusual contract for a hobby mag, and one of the reasons I
haven't written much for TFH. I like to maintain control of my own material,
especially when one looks back at some of the outrageous ways certain
publishers have abused the trust of their writers in the past.

Welllll, some magazines just want the copyright transferred to to them
and they own and and you no longer do. I think TFH's policy is pretty
generous.

>BTW, in absence of a written agreement to other terms, the default in
>the U.S. is first N.A. rights, and in Europe is first European rights.

Not really. In the absense of any written agreement the author retains
their copyright and the publisher is now infrining.

If I copy a German work I can be sued in German courts and I'll lose
even though I'm in Canada. You can sue for actual damages (if there
are any) and punitive damages if the work had a valid copyright notice
("copyright date author" - "copyright" can be "Copr." or circle-c
but not "(c)" which courts have held as invalid)

The US is a signatory to the Berne convention and any work is automatically
copyrighted as soon as a thought takes physical form, unlike the previous
system where you had to register a copyright with the PTO.

There is no concept under copyright laws as "first rights" there is
only "right to copy" or "copyright". These are just license agreements
between you and the copyright asignee. Typically rights are assigned
on exclusive or nonexclusive basis and there may be terms and
conditions. In the software world you see all sorts of variants
of these licenese such as the GPL, the Creative commons license
and so on and so forth. They spell out exactly what rights the person
using the copyrighted material has and under what conditions they
may use it.

Then there's the "fair use provision" which lets you use certain 
parts for certian purposes, and you can give away your copyright
by stating your work is in the "public domain".

The length of a copyright is currently in the US the lifetime of the
author plus 50 years. The US Congress keeps bumping it up and did so
recently so Micky Mouse didn't fall into the public domain;
Disney lobbied big time for this.

A good friend of mine is an intellectual property attorney if
anybody has specific questions, there's also some resources
at http://vrx.net/copyright

See also http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2005/02/24/lessig.html
for some of the issues.

Then there's the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

And more. It's not complex but there are lots of bits and pieces.

This stuff is coming to a head in courts now mostly because of P2P
file sharing. The music and video publishers are spendinf millions
if not billions to undo rights consumers have been granted in
courts, for example the landmark "Betamax" case which lets you
tape TV shows to watch them later. One school of thought has it
the Supremes are about to throw this out.




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