At 12:13 AM 11/04/98 -0500, Ken Hooper wrote:
" is meaningless, you cannot publish the compilation without
>publishing the messages so you still need explicit permission or at least
>something that passes for a contract.
>
Let me try again.  Just because you write something doesn't mean you hold
the copyright. In fact, there is no copyright unless you say so on the
item.  So far, I haven't noticed any copyright notice on anything published
on this list, so it's all common domain.  Except, of course, this item.
Because I am about to copyright it.
Copyright (my keyboard doesn't have the shorthand symbol, a 'c'in a circle)
 by Ian Cameron.
 There. Now no one can copy this (except for quotation in a review and in a
number of other cicumstances) without paying me.  Or I'll spend thousand of
$$$ suing him or her or them.

The reason I'm familiar with this stuff is that I do a fair amount of
writing for periodicals, and belong to the Canadian Authors Assn.  As you
can imagine, coryright is a major concern.  But there's a difference
between intellectual property and anything you create, the difference being
the declaration of exclusive ownership.