RE: Calling a program without knowing the parms

Phil,

> . . .or releasing the code into
> the public domain.  (The latter is what happens e.g. to code published in
> many magazines.)

I think this is what I was asking - why not just release it into the public
domain.  How does copyright work when someone has paid you to write the
code?  Who has rights to it?

Phil G.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com]On
> Behalf Of Phil Gregory
> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 3:24 PM
> To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: Calling a program without knowing the parms
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 02:22:10AM -0400, Phil wrote:
> > With all this trouble, why bother to license it at all?  Is
> there reason why
> > you'd want it licensed?
>
> In order to allow others to use the code.  Legally, code has been ruled to
> be copyrightable.  Thus, any code that you write is automatically
> copyrighted and "belongs" to you.
>
> The exact details of how copyright applies to source code are somewhat
> muddy at the moment, but the generalities of copyright hold.  Copyright
> law gives the author exclusive rights to his code, while other can do very
> little with it.  (There is the fair use doctrine, but that's one of those
> muddy details with source code, and we're discussing an entire program,
> which would be too large to fall under fair use.)  If you want others to
> be able to use your code, you ought to give them the legal right to, which
> means either supplying a license for the code or releasing the code into
> the public domain.  (The latter is what happens e.g. to code published in
> many magazines.)
>
> Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but I have done a fair bit of research on
> this topic.
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