[shovel]

Originally Posted by Erwin

Just to address the issue of hacks and computer code:

If a person writes a piece of program, or code, or poetry, or story, or lyrics to a song, or music - the work created has copyright which belongs to the creator or author AUTOMATICALLY. This is a common law right.

Registration of this copyright gives protection under LEGISLATION (which offers greater protection) - however, even without registration copyright exists under common law.

Please read up on intellectual property laws before making untrue statements like that. If you distribute the copyright works of another person without the author's express or implied permission, you are then breaching copyright and can be sued for damages.

We're talking about the internet here Erwin. This is a very large gray area for the courts. Second of all, in what ways are they a copyright to the members? By screenname? Really, because it so happens that there are plenty of duplicates here. Anyone can say that they are hellsatan or Dalius and say that it is indeed their "property". How would that be argued in court? To say that the work is a copyright of the writer, the writer would have to produce their real identity (i.e. whole name, etc.). I'm not claiming any untrue indictations, only valid statements.