I'm going to wade into the copyright fray a bit late, but having worked
in copyright (several years ago) perhaps I can simplify it for everyone.
My experience was in the music industry, but I believe that the
principles are the same. Here are a couple of examples of copyright
infringements:

1. Wierd Al Yanovich was a DJ in LA and one morning he starting singing
to the tune of Queen's 'Another One Bites the Dust' - 'Another One Rides
the Bus'. My boss heard it on the radio, by 10:00 a.m. we were on the
phone with Wierd Al telling him that (1) he had to pay us for using our
song and (2) if he did it again without prior permission from us & the
writer (prob. Freddy Mercury) we would sue him. Freddy Mercury & Screen
Gems owned the tune and you cannot substitute words & get away from
copyright law.

2. Old song: 'No Way to Treat a Lady'. A razor company made a commercial
using a totally different tune and words -- however, the INTENT was the
same. 'No Way to Shave a Lady'. We won this one in court. You cannot
borrow the intent of copyrighted material.

3. Richard Pryor hummed a bar of music from 'Close Encounters' during a
comedy sketch that was recorded. We won that one too. No permission & no
payment. If material is copyrighted, you must receive permission from
the owner & generally pay $$ if you will be making money yourself from
the use of the material.

That's really, in my opinion, usually the bottom line in copyright
issues. If you are going to be making money from copyrighted material
you are going to have to pay money (a license fee) before you can
legally use and claim the material as yours. If you are not going to be
receiving money from someone else's intellectual material then usually
you can get a gratis license (i.e., schools wanting to perform 'Close
Encounters' or use quotes in yearbooks were generally granted gratis
licenses to do so).

I don't think that you can copyright public domain material as 'yours'
but I think that if you compile public domain or uncopyrighted material
(i.e., church birth records) and copyright your compilation before
publishing it, then you've copyrighted what you have done/compiled, not
the original records. Someone else can go compile and copyright their
list of the same birth records, but it has to be original work not
simply copying your work. Steve Coker's response to this public domain
question was right on.

Elizabeth Russo can compile, organize, index and publish her ancestor's
stories, copyright the material as she presents it. She cannot copyright
the individual stories under her name as the author. Only as author of
the collection of stories with credit given to the original author.

By and large, no one will 'get in trouble' with copyright issues if you
are not trying to make money from the material, are not doing it
intentionally or taking credit for someone else's copyrighted,
intellectual material. There are exceptions and some company's have a
reputation for being very heavy-handed when it comes to their
copyrighted material. Disney will sue if you use one of their images
without consent -- they have sued little daycare centers for using Micky
Mouse. Mattel will sue if you use images of Barbie or the Barbie logo
without permission.

By the way, the old mail it to yourself & it's copyrighted is a bunch of
bunk. You have a file a copy of the material with the copyright office. 

If everyone uses common sense, credits original author's, etc. then all
should be well. 

Kathi Jones Hudson

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