What should your copyright notice say?

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Jan192010 | Steve O'Donnell

What should your copyright notice say?

As I mentioned before, copyright has a lot of urban legends attached to it. Another one of these is the attachment most people have to the little copyright notice on the bottom of their websites.

You don’t need it.

Copyright is automatic as soon as something is “fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” Under US law, a copyright notice is not required for anything first published after March 1, 1989.

There may be reasons why you’d want to use a copyright notice. There is a chance of the notice scaring away a potential infringer that doesn’t know much about copyrights. I don’t think it’s much of a watchdog, maybe a small chihuahua--one of those shaky, teacup, apple-headed chihuahuas.

Another reason is that a notice will defeat a challenge that an infringement was not willful. If an infringement is willful, the infringer could be liable for enhanced statutory damages as high as $150,000 plus costs and legal fees. I know, sounds good doesn’t it? However statutory damages are only available to registered works and precious few people register the work on their websites with the copyright office. Notice may also have benefits under the laws of other countries.

On the other hand, having a copyright notice doesn’t hurt anything. Whether you want to use one or not is your call, but don’t feel like you’re putting your work in danger if you don’t have one.

Image published in 1906 found on cyberlawcentre.org and is from the Library of Congress' Bob Hope Vaudeville and American Variety Archive.

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Jan192010 | Steve O'Donnell

What should your copyright notice say?

As I mentioned before, copyright has a lot of urban legends attached to it. Another one of these is the attachment most people have to the little copyright notice on the bottom of their websites.

You don’t need it.

Copyright is automatic as soon as something is “fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” Under US law, a copyright notice is not required for anything first published after March 1, 1989.

Image published in 1906 found on cyberlawcentre.org and is from the Library of Congress' Bob Hope Vaudeville and American Variety Archive.

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Comments

Anonymous commented on 20-Jan-2010 11:31 AM

Steve, Affixing a copyright notice is beneficial because it: 1. Provides notice that the work may not be used in any way that infringes its copyright. This categorizes the work as non-public domain material, acts as a deterrent to infringement, assists to persuade third party publishers to take down infringing copies, and alters the infringement remedy dynamic by characterizing the infringer as willful [as a practical matter]. 2. Provides notice as to who owns the copyright in the work. This is useful to assist potential licensees in locating the owner and provides a reputational benefit to the author. 3. Provides notice of when the work was first published. This is useful because the date also informs the world when the copyright will expire, because the notice may include dates of revisions of the work, and is evidence of the owner’s use of trademarks present in the work as of the date noticed. 4. Infringers of the work may not claim their infringements were innocent. This takes away the court’s discretion to award reduced statutory damages. 5. Removing the notice may violate copyright law's prohibition against circumventing the owner's copyright management efforts.

Steve O'Donnell commented on 23-Jan-2010 01:22 PM

My Anonymous Commentator "MAC": Thanks for taking the time to read my post and comment. I do appreciate it. Now MAC, I don't disagree with you, but I don't think your points really mean anything for the vast majority of websites. The main reason is that so few are actually registered. In fact, I'm not convinced that many are even capable of being registered. Certainly many have copyrightable elements, but even for those elements, the vast majority go un-registered. The other wrinkle about noticing publication of a website is that it can be easily and quickly changed at any time. . . meaning I don't think it has any real evidentiary value. To comment on each of MAC's points: 1) I don't think a notice has any real deterrent effect; A takedown notice doesn't require a (c) notice; if the copyright isn't registered, there isn't an economic benefit to having a willing infringer. 2) For websites, one can get that through a whois query. 3) If I'm a content provider, I really don't care if someone can figure out when my work enters the public domain. I'd like them to assume it's protected forever. I'm also not convinced that a publication date I put on a website is good evidence of the real date of publication. I can put "(c) 1985" on a page where I post a copy of the book Twilight; that certainly isn't going to carry the day if I sue, or get sued by the real copyright holder. 4) That only matters for registered works, and the vast majority of people are not registering their websites or blog posts. 5) Do you mean the DMCA MAC?? Interesting thought, but without some DRM, I'm not sure how that would come up. Am I missing something? I don't think you're gaining anything by having a notice on your website. . . but you're also not hurting anything. If you want to use one, use one, but don't worry that forgetting a notice means your work is dedicated to the public domain.