COPYRIGHT INFORMATION, THIS SITE, AND YOU
Thanks to the wonderful thing we call the Internet (aka the World Wide Web, or just "the web"), it is amazingly easy for people to publish their work and gain recognition for it. It is also unfortunately all too easy for others to steal that work and think that they can get away with it. We're here to inform you that this isn't the case, folks, and if we find out, we'll come after you for it. Please read the following information carefully, and understand what it says before you go "borrowing" any of our images, pages, stories, graphics, or anything else you think looks neat that you'd like to have on your pages...because it's not just flame war material...it's the LAW. Our notes appear in bold italics.
UNITED STATES JOINS THE BERNE COPYRIGHT CONVENTION January 1989
For many years, the most important omission in international copyright protection for United States authors has been the failure of the U.S. to adopt the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. This Convention, which was originally adopted in 1886, is the world's oldest and most widely adopted international copyright treaty. Berne requires a member nation to provide the same copyright protection to authors who are nationals of other Berne member nations that it provides to its own nationals.
On October 31, 1988, President Reagan signed a bill amending the Copyright Act to make it compatible with Berne, and the U.S. took the formal steps necessary to become a member of Berne. The effective date of both the Act and the United States' membership in the Berne Convention is March 1, 1989.
Although the U.S. has been a member of the Universal Copyright Convention (the "UCC") since 1954, that treaty has been less widely adopted than Berne, and generally is regarded as conveying less international copyright protection than membership in Berne. By ratifying Berne, the U.S. will establish copyright relations with 24 nations who were not members of the UCC, and with whom it previously had no reciprocal copyright law relations. The U.S. action brings to 76 the number of countries belonging to the Berne Convention, leaving the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China as the only major countries which are not members.
Berne requires its members to meet certain minimum copyright standards, and Congress was forced to amend the Copyright Act to conform in several ways. First, under U.S. copyright law, it has long been required that registration must be attempted (and granted or denied by the Copyright Office) before a suit for copyright infringement can be maintained. This condition is inconsistent with Berne, and therefore Congress was forced to eliminate the registration requirement. However, rather than do so for all authors, Congress created a two-tiered system: authors of works whose country of origin is the U.S. still must attempt registration before commencing litigation, while authors of works where the country of origin is a Berne member other than the U.S. may bring an enforcement action without attempting registration.
note: This means that you do not need to see a copyright symbol for something to be protected under Echo Station copyrights by law. The moment something is conceived and published in any manner, it is protected under the Berne Copyright Convention. Insofar as Echo Station and this website are concerned, all graphics, articles, commentary, and the like are published under the auspices of the entity known as "Echo Station". This is a "shared" copyright situation in that copyright always belongs to the originating artist, writer, or whomever originally created the material...but materials specifically created for Echo Station and/or by Echo Station staff also immediately become the copyrighted material of Echo Station and shall be treated as our property in all regards. This applies to all Echo Station domains including the EMag, Main Terminal, etc.
As a further note, this copyright information is being provided for your general awareness and knowledge. As Echo Station is directly affiliated with the corporate entity NovaTech Web Services, a web hosting company, you should also be aware that this information directly applies not only to every site on the internet, but specifically to those residing on our servers. Naturally, neither Echo Station nor NovaTech Web Services assumes any mantle or privilege regarding copyrights held by any of our hosted sites - their sites are their own works, and they retain all exclusive copyrights (except where otherwise noted, such as LucasFilm trademarked and copyrighted material, etc.) to their content for all time...however, the Berne Copyright Convention does apply to their sites and their content, and NovaTech Web Services may at any time conduct such legal action as necessary at the request of, or on behalf of, any hosted site.
At the same time, Congress doubled the level of statutory damages -- damages that a copyright owner may recover without the need of proving either actual economic injury to itself or illegal profits to the infringer -- for copyrighted works. For example, in the case of a willful infringement, maximum statutory damages have been increased from $50,000 to $100,000.
The second major change forced by Berne is the elimination of the requirement that a published work bear a copyright notice in order to prevent the work from entering the public domain. The notice requirement has been eliminated for all works, whether or not they originate in the United States. However, the amended Copyright Act contains significant incentives for domestic and foreign authors to continue to put notices on their works. The Act now provides that a proper copyright notice precludes a defendant accused with infringement from asserting the defense of "innocent infringement," which otherwise might enable a defendant to avoid actual and statutory damages.
note: Echo Station and NovaTech Web Services always have, and always will, contain copyright notices on all sites. A notice resides on our front index page, and that is all the notice that need be given...it does not need to appear on all pages within the site to be enforceable. The material also states that violators are liable for up to $100,000 USD of damages for EACH instance of infringement. Rest assured that we are just as greedy and money-loving as the remainder of the human race, and we will do everything in our power to receive such compensation as we are due per the above guidelines, plus any and all legal fees incurred in the course of our efforts.
We hope you take this information to heart, and keep it in mind as you enjoy our sites, and all other sites on the internet. People put a great deal of time, effort, and energy into the work that you see around the internet, and to believe that you can take it and use it with impunity and lacking permission is ludicrous. If you can't create your own material, either get others to do so for you, or please stay off the 'net entirely...we'll find a better use for the bandwidth, we assure you.