Copyrighting (was Re: Copywriting)

From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)

Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1990 15:33:05 +0000

In article <90039.114604JJK106@PSUVM.BITNET> JJK106@psuvm.psu.edu (jeff kochosky) writes:
:     I recently finished writing the rules for a game, and I wish to get them
: copywritten so once I develop it for whatever means of play (either computer
: or board), I can try to market it or sell it to a game company without
: worring about my idea being taken from me.  Does anyone have any information
: about how I would go about copywriting the rules, or if that is even possible.
: To make it easy to all you millions of people just waiting to reply to this,
: just post your responses to the net... I'm an avid reader (ok, so I'm bored
: a lot at work... who isn't?)  Thanks for the help, if I get any... and for the
: time if I don't.

Under the recently changed copyright law, your game is copyrighted
when it is created.

But...

If you distribute the game without a properly written copyright
notice

you don't register with the US Copyright office

your rights under the law are severely impaired. For example, if
my memory is correct, while you can prevent someone else from
publishing your work if you don't do those things, you can't
collect damages from them should they violate your copyright.

I don't know the details of registration; call up your local
Federal Courthouse or whatever and ask them how.

Before distributing your game to anyone, you want to put in some
very prominent place(s) a copyright notice. It should probably
look something like this:

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com

References

Copywriting
JJK106@psuvm.psu.edu (jeff kochosky)
Thu, 08 Feb 1990 16:46:04 +0000