[Foundation-l] Commons Usurp issue

[Thomas Dalton]

On 04/06/2008, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:46 PM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > 2008/6/4 Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com>:
>  >> You cannot hold copyright anonymously,
>  >
>  > TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 3 > § 302 (c)
>  >
>  > "In the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made
>  > for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year
>  > of its first publication, or a term of 120 years from the year of its
>  > creation, whichever expires first."
>
>
> You are right, copyright can be held anonymously. I should have said
>  "it cannot be enforced anonymously". That is, you can't log in to
>  court with your wikimedia user name.

In practice, you're probably right, anonymous copyrights are pretty
unenforceable, but we're not talking about anonymous copyrights, we're
talking about pseudonymous copyrights, which are perfectly
enforceable. You take a laptop into the court room and show that you
know the password for the account and you've pretty much proven that
you are the person that went under that pseudonym (not proven beyond
all doubt, certainly, and maybe not proven beyond all reasonable
doubt, but if memory serves, that isn't the requirement for a civil
case, the burden of proof is fairly light in civil court).