Re: How can I avoid Using a Semaphore?

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <93ti8b$bjpps$1@ID-25716.news.dfncis.de>,
  "Nick Roberts" <nickroberts@callnetuk.com> wrote:
> -- (c) 2000 Nicholas James Roberts
> -- All rights in this work are hereby granted into the PUBLIC
> -- DOMAIN by the author. The author asserts his moral rights
> -- over this work.

This is about the most confusing copyright notice I have seen.
The first line is straightforward, and seems to be asserting
a copyright interest.

The second statement contradicts this by saying it is in the
public domain. The only way something is in the public domain
is if the author specificially give up the copyright. Once
something is in the public domain, the author no longer has
any rights over it.

The third sentence may have some significance in the EU, but
in the US, it hs meaningless. The only rights of an author are
those granted by congress under the copyright act. And we are
confused as to whether this work is copyrighted or not.

The best advice reacting to this notice is to assume that the
copyright is fully in effect, and that this work should not be
copied or otherwise infringed on. I am not sure that is the
intent, but no other interpretation is legally safe.

It all goes to show that in any case you should not trust the
notices you find in software units, the copyright status is not
formally affected by such notices in any case (though in a
court case, the existence of such a statement may be used as
evidence, for instance in this case, if someone does infringe
the copyright, then as a defendant, they could try to persaude
a jury that the work was indeed in the public domain, and if
the jury was convinced that would be that :-)


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