Cubic Dollars

[Greg Hermann]

>At 12:59 PM 1/28/99 -0700, Greg Hermann wrote:
>>
>>OK --this is what I was talking about--does anybody know what you gotta do
>>to "register" a copyright??
>>
>>I freely admit to being WAY out of date on this, but it would seem that
>>they cannot sue you over it if they have not registered it.
>
>Nonsense.  If they can prove they originated it, and that you stole it (for
>that is what is being advocated here), your ass is grass.  Assuming they care.

Nope--read the book---Clarence posted the relevant language----in order to
initiate a legal action for copyright infringement, they HAVE to have
registered the copyright. They will NOT register it, because then all (or
more than they want) of their source code would have to put into the public
record, for all (Go BRUCE) to see and study. They want not to do that badly
enough that they will not be suing anybody over using/selling/playing with
the stuff anytime soon.

Their lawyers are not stupid--if they sued you without having registered
the copyright on it, and you had anything approaching a decent lawyer,
their action would be dimissed for something along the lines of "failure to
state a claim for which relief can be granted" before the fool thing ever
got started. And, by statute, in most places, they can be held liable to
pay YOUR legal fees when something is dismissed that way--so don't be shy
about hiring a GOOD lawyer if it ever happens!

To make a long story short---- I'm not too worried!!

Regards, Greg
>
>Mitch
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mitch Barrie's Chevelles:  http://www.employees.org/~ozyman/carstuff
>Southern California Chevelle Caminos: http://www.chevelles.net/scccc