Ismael, Göran is correct when he says any work of "art" is copyrighted the moment it is published. But I think you're taking the word "published" too literally. I did a lot of study on copyright law before I posted my versions of Hoke's book.
A work of art as Göran put it can include written words, recorded music, photographs, drawings, electronic books, software, etc. Essentially, it is anything the human mind can put into a form that can be shared with others. Written materials can include books, manuscripts, magazines, newspapers, etc. In our modern world, that also includes electronic media.
You're saying it can't be copyrighted because there was no "publishing company", that it was only "spiral bound", and that Chris never "mentioned" having it published. None of that affects whether something is protected by copyright. Consider all the web sights of the world that do include copyright notices on their sites. There is no publishing company and their work is never printed let alone bound in some fashion. But it is protected. Including a written copyright notice in a book or on a website is not required, but it does strengthen the author's case if it goes to court. No one can plead ignorance by saying the author didn't include a notice of copyright on their book, and they never mentioned to me that it was protected, so I assumed I could make all the copies I wanted.
This is a tricky subject for us. I don't think any of the moderators want to see Chris' work lost forever. But we also respect the work he put into committing his knowledge to writing, and the rights to copyright protection he deserves, even after his passing.
Unless someone is able to make contact with a member of Chris' family, I don't think we can endanger the forum by sharing copyrighted material here. About two and a half years ago, our forum was shut down for days by the web host because it received a complaint that there was copyrighted material on our forum. It turned out that the complainant was a member here, and he had actually made the post that he later filed the complaint about. :roll: It didn't matter that the complaint was false. It still had the forum down for days.
Dave
