Wouter van Ooijen wrote:

>> Yes, that's my understanding too - you can't "Copyright" 
>> something, it has copyright intrinsically as soon as 
>> it's created (it doesn't even have to be published).
> 
> AFAIK publication is necesarry.

Maybe the question is what "publication" means in this context. 

Let's say I write up something, put it in an envelope, seal that envelope
and put it in a lock box to which I don't have a key, and make sure that I
have a definite proof (through the lock box owner, by a sufficiently
"definite" procedure) that I put that specific work in the lock box on
2005-12-23. 

Can I later claim that I "published" this work for copyright uses? I'm not
sure. I think the idea is that if you want to invoke copyright protection,
you need to prove that somebody copied your work. Without it being
"published", it can't be "copied". But in this sense, "published" seems to
mean only that the work existed, potentially accessible to somebody. In the
example above, my work surely didn't get "published" in the general sense
of the word. But if somebody claims to have a year later created something
that is beyond reasonable doubt an exact copy of my work, I think I may
have copyright protection -- if there was a possibility that he could have
gotten access. I think that's what "publication" might mean in this
context: the (even remote) possibility of access to the work. Without that,
there's probably no possibility of a copyright.

I also think that I could use it as prior art in later patent disputes
(which of course is a different question than copyright). 

Gerhard

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