Copyright

Copyright in the electronic age is an extremely complex matter and there are often no definitive answers - this section does NOT offer any FORMAL guidance. Copyright differs from country to and whilst you may feel that what you do is OK where you live, it may be illegal elsewhere.

It is wisest to assume that all published material is copyright and has restrictions on its use. Some of it is highly valuable intellectual property and will be worth defending in the courts. For example, if a museum publishes its pictures on the Internet, you may not publish them in your own work without permission. However, the very fact that a page is on the Internet implies that it can and will be downloaded (since the browser reads it into memory). However, printing it to paper could constitute a breach of copyright as could mailing it to others.

Documents are copyright even if they do not explicitly contain a copyright notice.

Note to authors

In preparing material you must be scrupulously careful to avoid infringing copyright. It is almost always illegal to: However some authors allow you do redistribute their copyright material, often with conditions. These can be:

When in doubt the safest courses are:

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pmr for pps
Sept 18 1994