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Do you need the year with your copyright notice?

by Lloyd Buchinski
11 replies
It seems to be included about 99% of the time, but not sure why. Have been wondering about this for awhile so thought I'd ask.

And just saw a copyright notice that adds a bit of variety.

"Copyright 2010 Your Name Here. All rights reserved."

Yesss, take care of the legalities. Enjoyed that one
#copyright #notice #year
  • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
    The idea is to give 'proof' that you held the copyright first if someone copies it, but with timestamps and everything; it's usually pretty easy to prove.
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    LOL... It only denotes the start of the copyright, defining the age of the document. I always include, but I don't know if it is a must.
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  • Profile picture of the author JMB Marketing Group
    Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski View Post

    It seems to be included about 99% of the time, but not sure why. Have been wondering about this for awhile so thought I'd ask.

    And just saw a copyright notice that adds a bit of variety.

    "Copyright 2010 Your Name Here. All rights reserved."

    Yesss, take care of the legalities. Enjoyed that one
    You're correct, but not necessarily! Meaning, I've come across tons of sites that haven't updated to the current year. Take a look next time you're at a site. You'd be surprised at how many people don't have the current year -- even some of the top big dogs. However, they are still protected under copyright law.

    On a side note, UNLESS you have a copyLEFT on your site, which means you are willing to share your information freely to who ever, people can use what you are offering for whatever means.

    Just thought I'd throw that one out there for people who would like to share their website's content info. and didn't know how to!

    Cheers,

    JMB
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    • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
      Originally Posted by JMB Marketing Group View Post

      You're correct, but not necessarily! Meaning, I've come across tons of sites that haven't updated to the current year. Take a look next time you're at a site. You'd be surprised at how many people don't have the current year -- even some of the top big dogs. However, they are still protected under copyright law.

      On a side note, UNLESS you have a copyLEFT on your site, which means you are willing to share your information freely to who ever, people can use what you are offering for whatever means.

      Just thought I'd throw that one out there for people who would like to share their website's content info. and didn't know how to!

      Cheers,

      JMB
      You're not allowed to update to the current year unless you make substantial changes. A copyright is good for 75 years after the death of the author or creator. If you want to include the current year you should display it from the original year through the current year, such as © 1997 - 2010 Dennis Gaskill.

      There are a LOT of little caveats, this is only a very general guideline for intellectual property for any country abiding by the Berne Convention, which is almost every country in the world.

      Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      By the way, if you display a copyright notice you should include the year, but you don't have to display a copyright notice to have copyright protection. So just because you see something that doesn't display a copyright notice doesn't mean it's not copyrighted.
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      • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
        Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

        You're not allowed to update to the current year unless you make substantial changes. A copyright is good for 75 years after the death of the author or creator. If you want to include the current year you should display it from the original year through the current year, such as © 1997 - 2010 Dennis Gaskill.
        That is completely new information to me. Have not heard it before but it does make sense. Thanks.

        The last time I was reading up on copyright notices the message was usually about a script that would update all your footers to include the current year in the copyright notice, right after midnight on Jan 1.

        The idea was that your site looks completely up to date, and not abandoned. This sounds better.
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        • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
          Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski View Post

          The last time I was reading up on copyright notices the message was usually about a script that would update all your footers to include the current year in the copyright notice, right after midnight on Jan 1.
          I've been using such a script when I remember, which is not all the time. If
          you can't find a script, ask me and I'll dig it up.
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          • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
            Technically speaking if you wrote it you own the copyright regardless of whether you put a copyright notice on it or not.

            You're still protected by international copyright law...technically speaking.

            Beyond that you need to be thinking about the action you're going to take if someone uses your content without permission.

            Personally I like to set a legal team on them immediately. It helps when you have a lawyer who's also one of your paying clients.

            Kindest regards,
            Andrew Cavanagh
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        • Profile picture of the author SageSound
          Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski View Post

          That is completely new information to me. Have not heard it before but it does make sense. Thanks.

          The last time I was reading up on copyright notices the message was usually about a script that would update all your footers to include the current year in the copyright notice, right after midnight on Jan 1.

          The idea was that your site looks completely up to date, and not abandoned. This sounds better.
          The purpose of the copyright notice is NOT to inform people of when the site was updated last. It's to inform people that you're the copyright holder of record effective as of that date.

          If you started your blog in 2005 and your copyright notice says 2010, someone could make a case that everything on it published PRIOR to the date stated in the copyright notice was NOT, in fact, YOURS. That is, you're stating EXPLICITLY that YOU are the copyright holder for material published from 2010 onward. So ... who's the copyright holder for prior works? Gee, you've not said.

          Saying the copyright year was 2005, it INCLUDES 2010. But saying it's 2010 creates a thorny legal mess that will be rather expensive to sort out in court.

          There's a PRESUMPTION that if you go to the trouble of saying when your copyrights BEGIN, then you're IMPLYING you did not own them PRIOR TO that date. If someone nicked your older materials and you filed a claim, they could file a counter-claim that your "Copyright 2010" statement implied that you abandoned your earlier rights. I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like a fairly reasonable argument to me. And you'd have a tough time convincing a judge otherwise.

          In fact, if you're like most people in the US and you don't bother to file a copyright registration, and someone else filed one using your older materials, I'd say you have a slim-to-none chance of defeating them in court. That's because a copyright registration is required in order to file an infringement case in US courts, and because you said your copyrights began AFTER the other party filed their registration. Sounds pretty cut-and-dried to this "average person".

          That's what you get by listening to marketers who try to sell you scripts to make your sites "look good" rather than lawyers who understand the law.

          Better yet, read the stuff yourself. It's not rocket science, and there's no complex math involved. Remember, "ignorance of the law is no excuse".

          -David
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        • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
          Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski View Post

          That is completely new information to me. Have not heard it before but it does make sense. Thanks.

          The last time I was reading up on copyright notices the message was usually about a script that would update all your footers to include the current year in the copyright notice, right after midnight on Jan 1.

          The idea was that your site looks completely up to date, and not abandoned. This sounds better.
          Lloyd, I got that info from a PDF put out by the US Copyright Office when I was researching the public domain. It's available from their website.

          I use a script I wrote to automatically update my copyright notices, but it does it as I said earlier, using the 1997 to 2010 - where the '2010' is the part that is automatically updated every year. Here's a copy of my script:

          Code:
          <script type="text/javascript">
//Script from http://www.BoogieJack.com
	var Today 	= new Date();
	var ThisYear 	= Today.getFullYear();
	var DayName = Today.getDate();
	document.write("Copyright BoogieJack.com 1997 - " + ThisYear);
</script>
<noscript>
Copyright © 1997 BoogieJack.com
</noscript>
          Feel free to use it, whomever would like to. There are two things you'll have to change. In the line that starts with document.write you'll have to change who owns the copyright and the first year it was established. The noscript part is what will be displayed in browsers that cannot parse JavaScript. You'll have to change my information to yours there.

          Hope that helps.
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          • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
            Originally Posted by SageSound View Post

            If you started your blog in 2005 and your copyright notice says 2010, someone could make a case that everything on it published PRIOR to the date stated in the copyright notice was NOT, in fact, YOURS.
            Nope, as I mentioned the script would 'include the current year.' I didn't mean to suggest it would delete the first year, but if a person isn't familiar with those it is easy to misunderstand. I wasn't completely clear. (This communication stuff isn't easy is it?)

            Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

            I use a script I wrote to automatically update my copyright notices, but it does it as I said earlier, using the 1997 to 2010 - where the '2010' is the part that is automatically updated every year. Here's a copy of my script:
            Thanks for the offer and I'll put it on file in case it does come in handy. Right now I'm thinking of just updating my template footers once a year. I do something similar to you putting up new pages, (except for the Notepad part (!) )

            Mostly just grab the 2 col or 3 col template and add the copy.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
    You don't even have to display the copyright notice at all, your work is still covered by copyright. Oh, and by the way: the only REAL protection you have when it comes to court is if you've actually gone the full step and REGISTERED your work for copyright.

    While copyright EXISTS when you publish your work, until your REGISTER it you will have very little in the way of support for a claim.

    And don't fall for the old "poor man's copyright registration" myth of mailing yourself a copy of your web pages in a sealed envelope. That's simply bad information.

    The bottom line: if you want to ENFORCE your copyright then the work has to not only be copyrighted but it must also be REGISTERED.
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