From Keith.Bierman@eng.sun.com Tue Feb  7 02:19:27 1995
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To: Walt Brainerd <walt@swcp.com>
Cc: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk
Subject: Re: (SC22WG5.694) ISO, DIN, ANSI, JSA, ... 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 07 Feb 95 10:13:16 MST."
             <199502071711.AA00302@dkuug.dk> 
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 95 10:19:27 PST
From: Keith.Bierman@eng.sun.com
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>standard) cannot be copyrighted later, even if the form and
>format are changed somewhat.

See the Berne Convention. Your lawyer was clearly sticking to US laws
only. Berne superseded US law when the US signed the treaty. "My" copy
was borrowed from Sun Legal when they had offices nearby. That was a
few years back. However, any good legal library (and even a bad local
library) probably has the "readers digest" version in one of the
standard legal compendiums).

So, working from memory, in a nutshell, copyright is inherent in a
document. An author need take no specific action for the document to
be copyrighted.

However, in order to collect damages, one may have been required to
take defensive actions (like claiming copyright in the document,
filing with the Library of Congress or equivalent, etc.). It is
possible that overly broad distribution of drafts puts ANSI/ISO in a
poor position to sue for damages. Precise defensive actions may be
defined locally.

It is possible that an understanding similar to Walt's is what
motovated IEEE to start getting nasty about IEEE drafts.