... under the Copyright Act of 1909, Travis. <g>

But, under the Copyright Act of 1976, effective January 1, 1978, anything which CAN be copyrighted is AUTOMATICALLY copyrighted at the moment it is fixed in a "tangible form of expression"; i.e., finished manuscript (even if not published), finished artwork, song written down or recorded, and so on. No need for the author/creator to do anything other than complete the work.

It is therefore impossible for anyone to put on the internet something which is capable of being copyrighted without copyright protection (publishing on the internet itself would be "fixing" the work in a "tangible form of expression" even if it had not previously been "fixed".

As for the scans, the real question is, is the subject depicted in the scan copyrightable to begin with? This requires an analysis of what the scan shows (in short, it must depict an ORIGINAL work of authorship in one of the copyrightable categories of creative work (literary, musical, dramatic, graphic, sound, motion picture, etc.). A scan posted by a chip collector of a chip issued by a casino could not be copyrighted by the chipper unless he did something original to it (e.g., putting Greg Susong's face on Miss America's body)<g>.

However, SOMEONE has a copyright interest in the subject of the scan when it is a chip (see my other exchange with Gene Trimble on this subject; apparently, it is the chip manufacturers). So, the chip can be scanned and used only if the use meets the "fair use" standard (e.g., showing a picture for the purpose of selling the chip would be a fair use; using the chip in a separate commercial advertisement for the purpose of selling another product would not be "fair use").

As I mentioned in my other post, simply stealing another person's scan of a chip is not a COPYRIGHT violation, though it could conceivably be a violation of some other kind (e.g., of eBay's rules, of the CC>CC Code of Ethics, under certain circumstances, perhaps even of some criminal/fraud statutes).

Besides which, I just think it's low class to use the work someone else has done without even asking permission (which, as we've seen here, many of the regulars are willing to give). ----- jim o\-S