On 8/4/2012 11:22 AM, andrel wrote:
> On 4-8-2012 6:02, waggy wrote:
>> Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> On 03/08/2012 05:50 PM, Darren New wrote:
>>>> In addition, the school itself gets a copy of the thesis (or many
>>>> copies) and they wind up in the department or library or something.
>>>> Certainly when the student publishes a thesis, the school isn't
>>>> going to
>>>> fail to have a vanity copy.
>>>
>>> Sure. But that doesn't help *me* read it. I always seem to have trouble
>>> getting my hands on interesting papers and stuff...
>>
>> At my university, I have to deliver two printed copies to the school
>> library.
>
> I had about 300 IIRC. Different system. Ours is better ;)
>
>> I must also deliver an electronic copy to a commercial online
>> publisher to make
>> available through their private (paid) service. Registering a
>> copyright and
>> providing open access are add-on costs for the author.
>
> I thought that even the USA had gone over to the sensible system that
> everything one writes is automatically copyrighted.
>

Not entirely sure that I would call the US "sensible" in this case, 
since what it means in reality is "perpetual copyright", the resent BS 
from SCOTUS that you can re-copyright public works, the near total 
elimination of anything ever going public *ever* unless explicitly done, 
and finally, the fact that 90% of all works are copyrighted not to the 
authors, but whom ever they worked for, while doing it.

The last bit basically means that you, as a programmer, designer, 
writer, etc., don't own shit all of anything, unless you are willing to 
starve and never take corporate money, until you magically succeed at 
something. And, in practical terms, you can't even design a product in 
those conditions, without generally being unable to sell it, having to 
hand over rights to someone else anyway, and/or having to pay out vast 
amount of money, to cover your ass with prior works, patents, etc.

The only thing a published work avoids is that it is a) easier to create 
derivatives, in theory, and b) you can't patent it. But, I am sure some 
asshole is working on the latter in some special interest group some 
place...

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