Re: le lisri lu mi terpa li'u

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 03:53 PM 01/13/2000 -0700, reciproc@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:
>From: reciproc@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
>
> > Hello, Lojbanists.
> >
> > I have written and illustrated a children's story called "I'm Scared"
> > as GIF images. I give it to you all. I will send it to one or more
> > lojban web sites after a site maintainer tells me he wants it.
>
>i'o .i mi ba se pluka le nu tcidu
>Cool :). I look forward to reading it.
>
> > And another side note: The title and story are in Lojban, but I put the
> > copyright notice and the assignment of copyright to the LLG in English.
> > Does anyone know whether a copyright statement in Lojban would carry
> > any weight, particularly in the US?
>
>i lei jbostecmi [Lojban-list members?] puza casnu le simsa (to sa'unai le
>jei le flatelbilga bau la lojban cu cumki selpli toi) ije danfu fa le du'u
>na go'a ku tu'i la kanadas a la uson
>
>A similar subject (whether a licence in Lojban would work) was discussed
>on this list some time ago, and the answer we eventually came to was no,
>at least not in Canada or the US.

My understanding is that under international copyright law (which US and 
Canada are both treaty supporters of), materials are automatically 
copyrighted whether there is a a copyright notice or not.  The inclusion of 
the copyright notice in the US merely allows higher damage awards if the 
copyright is violated.  However, a US copyright notice is not valid unless 
the circle c is present in the notice ("(c)" or any other ASCII solution is 
not a valid substitute) along with other required elements, which have to 
follow the legal prescription.

Since the US has no official language, it is not clear that a copyright 
notice has to be in English, unless the legal prescription for the notice 
explicitly states this.  The Library of Congress site would have the actual 
rules.

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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