On Fri, 2002-01-25 at 22:24, Florian Weimer wrote:
You see the (c)? That's *your* legal protection against people stealing your code. The GPL only grants people extra rights, which they wouldn't have if only the (c) was there.
I don't think that in German law, you have to claim copyright in order to have it. Quite the contrary---you can't get rid of it even if you want to.
Same here (UK) - copyright automatically belongs to the author (unless this is changed under a contract - for example, if you're an employee of a software company). However, in the UK you're allowed to buy and sell copyright like any other commodity.
I think MJR is right with regards the (C) thing - you're supposed to write out the whole thing if you can't do a proper circle around it, i.e. Copyright XXXX The Author
Cheers,
Alex.