Larry Niven's Altair

[Tothwolf]

On Thu, 20 Aug 2015, Paul Koning wrote:
> On Aug 20, 2015, at 10:30 AM, Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> wrote:
>> On 8/20/2015 3:32 AM, Randy Dawson wrote:
>>
>>> I assume all the 8K, 4K BASICs are in public domain by now.  The demo 
>>> for the kids will be the 15 minutes of paper tape, followed by READY.
>>
>> Bad assumption.  Things that were actually registered even if there was 
>> no notice, or published with a copyright notice would still be 
>> protected under U.S. copyright.
>
> Depending on when.  If it was published without notice, the key question 
> is whether publication occurred before Jan 1, 1978, or after.  After, 
> notice does not matter; before, lack of notice means no copyright.

Indeed. Apple even screwed up on this with their iconic rainbow apple 
logo. I discovered this while researching the history of the logo while 
doing image work on Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons many years ago. It is 
still a trademark, but the image is public domain because it was published 
before 1978 with no notice.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Computer_Logo_rainbow.svg