RE: Client misunderstanding of public domain

["technical writing plus" <doc-x -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

Any creative work has some kind of copyright. Take a cartoon, for example.
It's a creative work. If I am the one who created it, then I own the
copyright on it. If I signed it with my name and that little c in a circle
thing and year, then it's somewhat easier for me to prove in a court of law
that I own the copyright. But, because I am the one who created it, I
actually own the copyright, whether or not it bears my name. 

Public domain. For me to place that cartoon in the public domain, I have to
state clearly that it is in the public domain. 

If I simply post a cartoon on a website (or if a magazine publishes it etc.)
with no such statement, then the law will assume that it is not in the
public domain and that somebody (me, presumably) is owed money each time it
is used. 

All of those manuals and instruction sheets and other stuff that is put on
the Web is owned by the companies and people who worked to assemble it -
these people and institutions own the copyright of all that creative work.
It is not in the public domain just because it is publicly available. 

Jim Jones

-----Original Message-----
Traci Pearson wrote:

>I've got a client who insists that I use content 
that is posted on the Web in a manual I'm doing 
for them. Not only that, they want me to edit the 
content to match the style of their manual.

I told my client they'd better get express 
permission, preferably in writing, to actually 
use that content in their own manual (which will 
have my client's copyright on it) as well as permission to edit that
content.

One of their (my client's) managers said, No, 
they don't have to. It's posted on the Internet 
and therefore it is now "public property."<

Al Geist responds:

Sounds like your client wants a whopping big lawsuit dropped on his/her lap.
Things posted to the Internet are not in the public domain unless the
originator of the material expresses in writing that it is free for the
taking.

I won't call that manager an idiot...okay, I will call him/her an idiot, and
an ignorant one at that.

Here is a website that may help you. Also check out the U.S. Copyright
Office.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

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