DMD Copyright string

[Steven Schveighoffer via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/22/15 3:08 AM, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> On 22/04/15 04:42, Daniel Murphy wrote:
>> "Colin"  wrote in message news:sbafvqyzjweacrhwdpmo at forum.dlang.org...
>>> I notice when you run dmd with no args, it will print:
>>> DMD64 D Compiler v2.067.0
>>> Copyright (c) 1999-2014 by Digital Mars written by Walter Bright
>>>
>>>
>>> Surely that's meant to be 2015?
>>> Walter should prob fix that. Someone could steal D!
>>
>> That's not how copyright works.
>
> Unfortunately, you are right. But that's only because the copyright
> system in the USA is completely broken.
>
> It used to work like that. Works that carried no copyright notice used
> to be automatically public domain, and the copyright notice start would
> dictate when the a work of art would fall into the public domain, some
> 20 years later.
>
> Under that law, the changes done in 2015 would fall into the public
> domain one year early, around 2034.

Not really, the "changes" are derived works. Sure, maybe the changes 
could be public domain, but what is the point of using changes when you 
cannot use the base? In any case, I think there isn't any "gotcha" 
issues here, we simply update the date, and we're good.

-Steve