2008/10/8 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
geni wrote: Since registration is not required, the legal presumption is that a published work falling within statutory definitions is copyright.
Wrong tense. We are talking about events in the past so the correct tense would be " registration was not required" which in the US isn't true. US law has also in the past required copyright notices.
PD is an absence of valid copyright, and that can be established in a number of ways, the most important of which are very easy arguments. The plaintiff still needs to establish a right of action, but owning the copyright would not be enough to overcome the clear fair use claim.
There is no evidence that they own the copyright within the US. Please provide an argument by which they could do so.