copyright notices

[Lee Naish]

In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.970428172253.8662B-100000 at cat.cs.mu.OZ.AU>, Oliver Hutchison <ohutch at students.cs.mu.OZ.AU> writes:
>  > 
>  > > Also, and you should all think about this, contributions to the Mercury 
>  > > system made by students are, by default, the intellectual property of the 
>  > > students, not the university.
>  > 
>  > I would guess that voluntarily putting that banner in your work would
>  > constitute signing over the rights to the code produced at least, though
>  > probably not the intellectual property which made the code possible.

The code (like a literary text) embodies IP - this is what copyright is about.
Transferring copyright generally requires a signed agreement, not just some
Ascii characters in a file.  The characters "Copyright" in a file do not have
legal standing, as far as I am aware; they are for (mis)information only.
 
> Actually, I seem to remember signing over my intellectual property rights
> was a requirement of enrolment at The University of Melbourne. I believe
> Melbourne is one of the only universities in the world to require this?

Some years ago the university made an ambit claim to all IP produced by
students.  This was widely criticised and they have now withdrawn the claim
(it was never tested in court).

	lee (learning a lot from coordinating 343:-)