🚀 go-pugleaf

[Ed. A number (!) of people sent in other contributions to the ongoing
discussion debating whether or not the AIDS Trojan was a copy
protection scheme.  While each and every one of these raised valid
concerns, in the interest of reducing net volume, I've not included
them all in this digest (bulk posting for you Usenet readers...).  If
anyone feels strongly against this, just let me know.  I'll gladly
continue posting related messages if it is felt that there are further
points to be raised.]

     I have read (and heartily recommend) the third edition of _How to
Copyright Software_ by attorney M.J. Salone and would like to post a
few points from it:

1) The United States is a member of the Berne Convention as of March
1, 1989; which means that works published on or after that date do not
need a copyight notice (Copyright 1990 John Doe) in order to be
entitled to copyright protection.  A notice is required to be included
in works published before that date or else they will lose protection
unless:

 a) Only a relatively small number of copies of the work exist without the
    notice.  This, of course, will not be the case with viruses since they
    are designed specifically to replicate themselves.

 OR

 b) The copyright is registered with a copyright office within five years of
    publication AND the notice is included in copies that are not yet in the
    hands of the public.  A virus author isn't likely to register, even if
    a pseudonym is listed in the copyright notice, since the author's real
    name is needed in order to actually sue in court for damages.  Admitting
    in court that he/she wrote a virus and waiving a copy of the registration
    around will be all the evidence needed to convict the author of breaking
    the law.  (Since the confession was made during a civil suit filed by the
    author I don't think "self-incrimination" regulations would protect the
    author.)

OR

c)  The author licensed or authorized another party to handle the work and the
    notice was not included due to the negligence of that party, unless the
    author did not specifically require the party to include the copyright
    notice.  This probably wouldn't apply to virus writers since other parties
    could later become witnesses against the author.  Most virus writers get
    pleasure of creating a virus on their own.

     Because of the length involved I will break up my contribution
into a few smaller postings.  Next time I'll mention how derivative
works come into play; this relates to cases where a person copyrights
a disassembly of a virus written by someone else.

DISCLAIMER:  The above interpretations are mine - I'm not a lawyer!  Please
             do not take this posting to be complete truth!