Re: Sorry, had to downvote... :(

"Copyrighted material is released to the public."

Er, no it isn't. Copyright applies to everything I create, including this very post. That's why El Reg asks me to give them permission to show this post on their website. Copyright is automatic, which is something many—particularly those who grew up in the US, where copyright is still generally assumed to require some form of registration—don't appear to understand.

Every company report I have written. Every manual for every industrial machine I've been hired to write or translate. Every in-house document I've ever had to create. It's ALL copyrighted. Every single bit of it. Even government White Papers are copyrighted to "The Crown" in the UK.

Many of these documents are most emphatically not intended for public consumption. Privately owned companies aren't even required to file anything other than their annual accounts at Companies House; everything else they produce internally is (a) copyrighted, and (b) private.

Copyright is not limited to novels, movies and music. It never was.