Date:	Thu, 23 Feb 1995 16:43:55 -0500 (EST)
From:	Chris Tate <FIXER AT FAXCSL DOT DCRT DOT NIH DOT GOV>
To:	djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject:	Re: <windows.h> copyright, etc.

'Twas written:

>>>   After all.. what could possibly be included in that header? If it is
>>
>> "(C) 19xx, Microsoft Corporation."
>
> No, it does not appear in the Borland 3.1 include files:

It doesn't have to.  Under modern copyright law (the Berne convention),
merely authoring a work "creates" a copyright to it.  There is no need to
even claim the copyright in writing, let alone to register it.  Such
measures just make it easier to litigate.

Under prior law, it *was* necessary to claim copyright, in writing, in the
work being copyrighted.  Also, contrary to popular belief, it was *NOT*
sufficient to use the abbreviations "(C)" or "(c)" in place of the (legally
acceptable) copyright symbol (the circle around a 'c').  If the true
symbol was not available, then the word "Copyright" needed to be spelled
out explicitly.

And finally, for what it's worth, the <windows.h> file supplied with
Visual C++ 1.0 says the following:

	Copyright (c) 1985-1992, Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.

I'm not a copyright lawyer, but as far as I can tell, <windows.h> is
most definitely copyrighted by Microsoft, and they could quite safely
take legal action against anyone distributing it without permission.

-- Chris Tate
   fixer AT faxcsl DOT dcrt DOT nih DOT gov

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