Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Smitty Two wrote:


Sorry, Meat. Any creative work is protected by copyright law from the
moment of its creation. Letter to Mom, drawing on the napkin at the
diner, or newsgroup post. You do not need to register a copyright to
make it valid, nor do you need to state "this is copyrighted yada yada
yada."

Only in the U.S. and only since the late 1980s.

Not so. It's the case in every country that's a signatory to the Berne
Convention:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_an d_Artistic_Works

In order for it to be properly protected, you do need both the copyright
notice with the year and "all rights reserved".

That used to be the case, but now it isn't:
---
Under the Convention, copyrights for creative works are automatically in
force upon their creation without being asserted or declared. An author
need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright in countries adhering to
the Convention. As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or
recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled
to all copyrights in the work and to any derivative works, unless and
until the author explicitly disclaims them or until the copyright
expires. Foreign authors are given the same rights and privileges to
copyrighted material as domestic authors in any country that signed the
Convention.
---

In the US if you do not file a copy with the US Library of Congress you
loose the right to obtain damages beyond those specified by law, if you
do you can ask for tripple damages.

Correct.

There is also no such thing as an international copyright,

It amounts to the same thing:
---
Since almost all nations are members of the World Trade Organization,
the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
requires non-members to accept almost all of the conditions of the Berne
Convention.

As of September 2008[update], there are 164 countries that are parties
to the Berne Convention.
---

the Berne Convention
provides reciprotity, meaning that something under copyright protection in the
US is under copyright protection here, but according to Israeli law, not
US law.

Yes, but the minimum protections are the same:
---
The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognize the copyright
of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of
the Berne Union) in the same way it recognises the copyright of its own
nationals. For example, French copyright law applies to anything
published or performed in France, regardless of where it was originally
created.

In addition to establishing a system of equal treatment that
internationalised copyright amongst signatories, the agreement also
required member states to provide strong minimum standards for copyright
law.
---

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
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