From: Euan Mee <xlucid@...>
Date: 2002-05-20T08:34:47+09:00
Subject: Re: ANN: Programmierung in Ruby

On 17 May 2002, Thorsten Haude wrote (more or less):
> there is no copyright as such in Germany. 

Not true.  Germany is as bound by the Berne convention as 
any other signatory nation.

> The author's rights are automatically given when the work is
> created; no special marker is required. 

This is true, but a separate point.  Copyright exists *from the 
act of authorship*.  This is also true in the UK. I expect it is 
true in the USA, also.

The reason people in the UK and D bother to (c) <author's 
name> <date> is because it makes it much easier to *assert* 
the copyrights when the matter is under dispute, not because 
it is strictly necessary in law.



Cheers,
     Euan
xlucid@users.sourceforge.net

'I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance,
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance'
 - Ogden Nash