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It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

updateyourfooter.com

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Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#31

Post by lloeki »

stedaniels wrote: post #18

Please note: Copyright notices are not required, they are only used out of habit, ignorance, or as a mild deterrent. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p03_copyright_no...

> out of habit, ignorance, or as a mild deterrent

I use them out of courtesy, to notice the person in front of the content that said content is (c) and that I actually did not forget to set a BSD/MIT/GPL/CC license, and/or to link to the actual license (which indeed leverages copyright).

Of course I know this is not needed from a legal PoV but I'm not using it for legal protection, I'm using it for actual humans to parse.

Also, the date metadata has been useful to me a few times. Please don't increment it automatically.

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#33

Post by mrmondo »

DannyBee wrote: post #23
mrmondo wrote: post #8

Im not sure of the legal value of having a copyright footer - could anyone explain if it would actually stand up in a court of law?

For works created after Berne (1988), it is 100% worthless, except in this one little edge case that has, to my knowledge, never occurred in practice. This edge case is: You have no notice on your work A person thinks they bought rights to your work from someone who is not you, AND has been reasonably misled by the lack of notice into believing they have rights to your work. They did not actually get rights, they jus…

Thanks for taking the time to reply, that's quite interesting. I also wonder how this applies for countries other than America, for example in New Zealand you can't actually 'sue' someone, you can take them to court if they've performed a criminal act but I'm not sure how you'd get with content on a website.

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#34

Post by WilliamMayor »

A copyright notice like this on a webpage does not serve to assert your claim to the copyrights of the page. You get those automatically. They serve to assist third parties that are trying to find the copyright holder.

If I find an awesome poem published on a website and I'd like to use it, I have to find the copyright holder. The notice tells me; when (roughly) the poem was written, and who it was written by. I can then find the correct people and hopefully obtain a license.

In 50+ years the notice might tell me that the work is likely to be in the public domain. It won't tell me for sure, but it would be an indicator.

A date range tells me that the poem has been altered over the years. It was first written in X and last altered in Y. You certainly don't want a copyright notice that simply updates to the current year. You're then misleading any person who might be trying to find you. As has been mentioned before, putting an incorrect date would not change your actual copyrights.

I'm currently part of a project (in the UK) looking to simplify the rights processes (focussing on video atm). I've been to several meetings with copyright lawyers and attended some copyright workshops. IANAL though, I just know some.

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#35

Post by DannyBee »

annnnd wrote: post #29
DannyBee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For works created after Berne (1988), it is 100% worthless, except in this one little edge case that has, to my knowledge, never occurred in practice. This edge case is: You have no notice on your work A person thinks they bought rights to your work from someone who is not you, AND has been reasonably misled by the lack of notice into believing they have rights to your work. They did not actually get rights, they jus…

Not that I don't agree with you, but it would be difficult to find such case - because most of the pages have the copyright notice. I am guessing that it doesn't hurt, so why not have one?

Most copyright notices on these pages are invalid, so they would not serve as valid notice anyway, so your presumption is wrong (it also reminds me of the bear patrol episode from the simpsons)

First, the form is often wrong, which makes it the same as no notice.

Second, if the date is wrong, it depends.

If you use too early a date, you lose that many years of protection.

If you use a date 1 year or more after first publication, it's the same as no notice

So what you get by using wrong notices can be worse than nothing. You actually lose some protection.

As for the rest of the reason not to do it, because it's complete an total cargo cult lawyering that wastes tons of time? You think you are getting something. You are getting worse than nothing. You are wasting time (this thread etc) figuring out how and when to update something, and whether it's legally correct, etc.

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#36

Post by empthought »

ck2 wrote: post #26
jaredsohn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This means if you made your site in 2000 and you died today, the copyright would still be good until 2050. Based on the logic of the previous sentence, wouldn't it be good until 2064?

You are correct, my mistake, 50 years beyond death. Corporations get 75 and will most certainly keep getting extensions, can you imagine Disney ever becoming public domain?

The most important pieces of their intellectual property are the trademarked characters, and trademarks never expire; they could probably allow the earliest works to fall under public domain and still maintain a large degree of control.

There are a little over a dozen influential Superman cartoons[1] from the 1940s that are public domain. That's the kind of thing that would be public domain -- it couldn't be a Mickey merchandising free-for-all or anything.

That being said, they certainly won't give up copyright protection unless they are forced.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1940s_cartoons)

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#37

Post by tlo »

jzwinck wrote: post #7

These copyright notices are mostly-useless boilerplate anyway, but if you're going to have one, it should have specific, fixed dates, not dynamic ones as this site suggests [1]. As a thought experiment: if a date is not actually in the document, but is updated dynamically by the document, what legal purpose could it serve? It seems an exhibit with no more legal relevance than a pocket watch. [1] http://stackoverflow.…

Full ack! Also, see the GNU copyright notices: https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notice...

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#38

Post by ck2 »

empthought wrote: post #36
ck2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, my mistake, 50 years beyond death. Corporations get 75 and will most certainly keep getting extensions, can you imagine Disney ever becoming public domain?

The most important pieces of their intellectual property are the trademarked characters, and trademarks never expire; they could probably allow the earliest works to fall under public domain and still maintain a large degree of control. There are a little over a dozen influential Superman cartoons[1] from the 1940s that are public domain. That's the kind of thing that would be public domain -- it couldn't be a Mickey…

Yes but you could make non-parody copies of disney stories without disney characters if the copyright expired as normal.

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#39

Post by dredmorbius »

jzwinck wrote: post #7

These copyright notices are mostly-useless boilerplate anyway, but if you're going to have one, it should have specific, fixed dates, not dynamic ones as this site suggests [1]. As a thought experiment: if a date is not actually in the document, but is updated dynamically by the document, what legal purpose could it serve? It seems an exhibit with no more legal relevance than a pocket watch. [1] http://stackoverflow.…

Dynamic dates _do_ serve to mark printouts and snapshots of sites, for whatever that's worth.

Re: It's Almost 2015. Update Your Footer

#40

Post by nanoscopic »

At the bottom of the article it says "No-© Update Your Footer Disclaimer: this is neither a vote for nor a vote against content copyrights." Stating "No-©" does not put your content into the public domain. It's meaningless tripe. The disclaimer following that just demonstrates the authors ignorance and unwillingness to learn as they imply some recognition that this is odd.
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