Peter Hucker said the following on 20/10/2008 19:53:
On 20 Oct 2008 18:30:20 GMT, mrorwell mrorwell wrote:

Even if a photo (or any work) is uploaded to a newsgroup, you are not
automatically granted the right to use it as you choose. Uploading it
does NOT put it in the public domain. There is never a time when it
automatically goes in to public domain until after the copyright expires.
Under current US law, could be 100+ years. (You have the Disney
corporation (among others) to thank for pushing for longer and longer
copyrights.)

Granted, the copyright holder may have a difficult time preventing you
from using it or tracking you down if you do use the photo without
permission, but they have (almost) complete legal control over its use.
The "almost" part refers to gray areas surrounding parody and reviews.

But copyright is WAY to complex to be explained in 2 paragraphs. Check
wikipedia for a better overview and links to more detailed explanation.

Then the US have it completely wrong.

What is the difference between people seeing your work on the
newsgroup, and people seeing your work on somebody else's webpage,
with attributions to you?

They didn't ask?