BF>> First of all: US copyright law does *not* apply outside of the USA. SD> You're right, it doesn't, however, you've never heard of the Berne SD> Convention then (of which all countries represented in this echo are SD> members of)?
You are referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention which states: "The Berne Convention formally mandated several aspects of modern copyright law; it introduced the concept that a copyright exists the moment a work is "fixed", rather than requiring registration. It also enforces a requirement that countries recognize copyrights held by the citizens of all other parties to the convention.".
However: 1. It applies only to literary and artistic works (so technical documentation isn't covered by it). 2. The article in English uses the word "copyright"; article in Russian uses "авторское право" (meaning the authorship itself, as opposed to plagiarism; it appears closer to German "Urheberrecht" and French "Droit d'auteur", than to copyright) - both appear to be correct, but... for different countries.
If necessary, I can serve as a principal author for the new FTS-0001 :-)
-- Alexey V. Vissarionov aka Gremlin from Kremlin gremlin.ru!gremlin; +vii-cmiii-ccxxix-lxxix-xlii
