Copyrights

[Guest_imported]

I have created quite a good program in QuickBasic 7.1, but
I do not know how to get free copyrighs so that nobody still my idea?

THANKS

 

[quebasic]

If you do not want the code copied, just compile it. If you don't want the ideas stolen. Don't release it. You can copyright code, but not ideas. Pacman was supposed to be copyrighted, but even before it's copyright died, thousands of imitations were made. Copyrights are not free and cost lots of money. You can put a copyright notice in the program, but no one will belive you, as many do that and lie. To decompile the program would turn it into asm or c, so your code would not be seen, but the other language equivalent would. People are not likely to steal your code any way, if it is compiled.

 

[trollacious]

Actually, in the United States, intellectual property rights are automatically assigned to the author/owners of the software even without registering the copyright. If you add to your code, or somewhere in your program, "All Rights Reserved by", then your name and the year, you've legally established your rights with the code. Some states grant further rights, and the federal ones are more complex and involved than that, but basically if you claim it's yours, and can back it up with original source code, you don't need to do anything else.

To back it up in court, though, you'd need to prove damages to a judge or jury, and for small amounts, it'd cost more than it'd be worth. However, usually a letter from the originator/owner of the code or a lawyer representing that person is sufficient to someone violating intellectual property rights to stop them.

 

[Alt255]

Actually, Trollacious, I think your information is dated by three or four years. Copyrights are registered in the U.S. now. For computer programs, it's a rather tedious process that requires the applicant to note the origins of the source code: i.e., whether lines 898 through 1026 are totally original work or they were copied from a Tek-Tips thread (don't laugh... the law requires notations on the origins of the work, even if it hasn't been copyrighted in the past, comes from the public domain or is just something you happened to stumble across on the Internet).

The idea is to establish how much of your program is original work.

Basically, if you are serious about placing a copyright notice in your application, you should hire a lawyer to take care of it for you. Second option: go to

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/title17/

and read Title 17 a few times. Then hire a lawyer to interpret it for you.

Sorry about being a wet towel here. The copyright laws are complex for your protection.

On the other hand, some things are relatively easy to understand: if you intend to use a copyrighted program (say QB 7.1) to write and compile your application for distribution, you must have been granted a license to do so by the owner of the copyright for the authoring program (say Microsoft Corporation... which, by the way, calls this an EULA or End User License Agreement, and various other names including Writ of Corporate Invincibility and Extended Waiver of All Rights Just Because We Can Get Away With It). The copyright laws are complex for Microsoft's protection, too.

Ya gotta love 'em.

 

[trollacious]

It could well be that what I wrote is inaccurate now. My court experience with intellectual property rights was 1995-98, and this was federal law then. Besides just reading the laws, you have to go through court decisions to see how the judges interpreted them for individuals to see what they mean. I remember reading one case where someone painted a mural on the wall with permission, but without pay. When the owner tore the building down, he had to pay the painter because the artist still held intellectual property rights, even though it wasn't legally copyrighted. Copyrighting is a subsection of the category of intellectual property rights, which includes patents, trademarks, licenses and other things, and gives an author, creator, or artist much broader rights than a registered copyright.

As well, states often have laws that add more rights to intellectual property owners, so those would have to be researched as well.