From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@ctelco.net
on 9/10/03 10:24 PM, Rick at giantsrick13@yahoo.com wrote: Is Stevevertigo correct that, because the page doesn't specifically have a copyright on it, it's fair game to be stolen and incorporated onto Wikipedia? I can't believe that.
Before 1989 (when the US adopted the Berne Convention) a work that was published in the United States without a copyright notice did not assert copyright. Some such works may have fallen into the public domain. However the law passed allowed for works in which a copyright notice did not appear to have copyright restored if certain steps were takens.
This was not generally true for works who first country of publication was/is a Berne Convention signatories as one of the principals of Berne is that there are no formalities to copyright; copyright subsists by the act of fixation.
There is no concept of copyright "theft"; only copyright infringement. There are criminal statutes that cover copyright infringment that can incur a criminal penalty. One does not deprive the owner of their property when one misappropriates intellectual property; one deprives them of the rights they have over that property.
Alex756