Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 23:02:00 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Sam Lubell <samlubell at verizon.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Re: Re: WSFA Journalism Projects
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 05:07 PM 3/4/2004 -0500, Jim wrote:
>Ted White wrote:
>Copyright is automatic. Registering a copyright only simplifies the
>procedure for bringing up a lawsuit for infringement -- but if you
>create something and put it in permanent form, it's copyrighted and
>could be infringed.

Yes, but I've not heard of an editor claiming ownership of the copyright
for a regular periodical consisting of articles written by multiple
people.  Either the copyright would belong to the authors of each piece
(which it actually does) or to the owner of the publication it was
submitted to assuming no contract was signed handing over certain rights.

Still, this must be a solved problem as plenty of publications have put up
issues on the web that originally came out before electronic rights would
have been a contract issue.  Any of the lawyers or writers her know?