Copyright Notice
THIS PAGE EXISTS DUE TO RECENT EVENTS SURROUNDING ERIC ERNST/STAFFAN AHLBERG AND APOLLO,AND ALSO THE RIP OFFS I HAVE SUFFERED. THIS DEMONSTRATES THE LEGAL POSITION REGARDING COPYRIGHTS,WHICH I HOLD OVER MY FILES.
THIS BRILLIANT TEXT SHOWS THE LEGAL BACK UP I,AND ALL FREEWARE DESIGNERS HAVE IF OUR COPYRIGHTS ARE BREACHED,AND REST ASSURED IF THAT HAPPENS AGAIN I WILL NOT HESITATE TO USE THE LEGAL PROCESS TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE.
MANY THANKS TO TOM ALLENSWORTH AT AVSIM FOR ALLOWING ME TO USE THIS TEXT FROM HIS EDITORIAL. THE TEXT IS COPYRIGHT OF TOM AND AVSIM AND IS USED WITH TOM`S PERMISSION.
FINAL MESSAGE: FREEWARE DOES NOT MEAN RIP OFF-WARE,DESIGNERS HAVE THE RIGHT TO PROTECT THEIR WORK,AND AS SPELLED OUT BELOW,WE ALSO HAVE THE LEGAL POWER TO BACK IT UP.ANY POTENTIAL THIEVES OUT THERE......YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
"But what about those copyrights? Does a free program, add-on, chart, navigation utility, whatever, have the same protection under international law that a commercial product has? Absolutely. Under the copyright convention of 1988, original works are automatically copyrighted and that copyright resides with the author for his or her lifetime plus a number of years unless they decide to release it into the public domain. All major countries are signatories to that convention. A commonly held myth is that an author has to label and go to great effort to clearly point out their claim of a copyright. Not true. Again, a copyright for original works is automatic. The copyright is conveyed as soon as those works are published. "Published" is defined as being brought into the public arena. As an obvious example; all original material found on AVSIM is automatically held in copyright. The misuse or misappropiation of any of AVSIM's material is a violation of our copyright. We don't have to label it as copyrighted; we don't have to declare it's copyright, it is copyrighted automatically - though we do, just to make sure there is no misunderstanding or wrong headed assumptions made and acted upon. The same applies to original works of the type that we find in this situation. "
"Some may argue that there is this thing called "fair use" that provides an umbrella caveat to the author's copyright. We have heard this many times before. The premise behind this argument is that though an author may hold a copyright on some creation, others can, under the banner of "fair use", use that copyrighted material in any manner they see fit. Fair use is not a justification for blatant and wholesale violation of a work. An example of legitimate fair use would be a site quoting some portion of an article from AVSIM and providing attribution (with permission of course). Illegitimate use of the fair use caveat would be the wholesale copying of an article or news story for their own use and with no attribution or permission. Okay, so would a portion of a panel or gauge constitute fair use? No. Neither were the authors asked for permission to do so, but just as onerous, neither were credited with their contribution, albeit unknowingly, to this commercial effort. Further, this would be akin to copying only Excel out of MS Office and asserting that its use by you in another suite of products is fair use. We don't think so and we can guarantee that Microsoft would agree. "
"There is one other dodge someone who might want to steal the work of freeware authors can employ. This is the "you have relinquished your claim to copyright by making your works freely available via file uploads to sites and locations outside your control". Ergo, the argument goes - since you have released your works to distribution channels outside your control, and more importantly, have not enforced your claim to copyright that would otherwise be protected if you had maintained control, you have relinquished your copyright. Hogwash. A vendor trying to defend their actions under this argument is in for a rude awakening in a court of law. If this argument held any water at all, why would you not see commercial rip-off's of shareware programs or even demos that are dispersed around the net? You don't. Why? Because it's a ruse. Shareware and commercial demos have a monetary value attached to them that can be readily calculated. That calculation translates into real damages that can be adjudged by a court of law. Not so for freeware, and thus, because there is no readily assigned intrinsic value, the ruse continues."
COPYRIGHT. TOM ALLENSWORTH/AVSIM 1999
EMAIL:
atcosimsite@atco.screaming.net
© Garry Lewis 1998,1999, 2000