>Trademark and Copyright law are two different creatures. (Standard "I am
>not a lawyer" disclaimer).  Since the US signed the Berne Convention
>regarding international copyright, it is not necessary to register
>a copyright to be protected.  In fact, you no longer lose your copyright
>if you do not indicate that your creative work IS copyrighted.  While
>publishing something on the web may make it easier for someone else to
>infringe on your copyright, you cannot lose your copyright by publishing
>on the web, or anywhere else.
>
>By the way, there are serious advantages to registering your copyright,
>specifically in terms of the amount of damages that may be awarded to you
>if someone infringes on your copyright.
>
>Susan Wageman

This is only right with whole and complete works. But what about publishing an
idea that is more or less complete and you just whant to wait for somebody to
answer or just adding something to your questions? What about people copying
parts of a text not only for using it for themselves? The net is just missing a
non public part where you really can get into a discussion with other people.
All you can do on the net is only public and so your copyrights are public too
because you will never be able to follow
The thing I want to say is, that in an international world with an totaly open
comunication system we know less about things going on with data than before.
This might be no disadvantage, I think mostly you won't get any problems, but
this is something to think about for the future development of the intenet.

Carsten
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