2000-2004 all right reserved

[yllai]

hi,
at the bottom of oour page, we had stated the copyright like '1998-2004 all rights reserved' in this page. is it we are going to change the year after every year? is it I have to chnage 2004 to 2005 on 1-1-2005? what is this line means?

thanks.

[bill]

yes, you should change that to match the current year (when the new year arrives).

[keyplyr]

The first year is all that's needed. Your copyright lasts for 90 years, so changing dates each year is not needed (and looks amateurish IMO.)

[copyright.gov...]

[ncw164x]

It might look amateurish in your opinion but it looks a lot better than having a site what has never been updated for years

It may not be a necessity but by changing the year it updates your sites pages, if it's good enough for Micrsoft and other large sites to update their copyright then its certainly good enough for me to change mine ;)

[BwanaZulia]

I look for the copyright and if it says 1996, I would think the site had barely been updated sine that time (I have a site I built in 1996 still running).

As for the year, it is dynamic so updates on the second.

BZ

[sean]

I've worked with people who thought a page was "fair game" if the end-date was not current, and I'll bet they far outnumber the ones who think 2000-2004 looks amateurish.

[keyplyr]

...but it looks a lot better than having a site what has never been updated for years

In your opinion right?

What makes you feel that by using an incorrect copyright notice that a site is updated more frequently than a site using the correct copyright notice - and why do you think the copyright notice has anything to do with how often a website is updated at all?

As a matter of fact, the notice isn't even required. You work is copyrighted (and protected just the same) the moment you publish it on the web. But there's so much misinformation and opinions being passed off as fact, no wonder people don't understand.

[Lance]

keyplyr wrote:

As a matter of fact, the notice isn't even required.
...
But there's so much misinformation and opinions being passed off as fact, no wonder people don't understand.

keyplyr: It appears you are guilty of providing some misinformation yourself.

From Circular 3 - Copyright Notice [copyright.gov]:

The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U.S. law, although it is often beneficial.
...
Furthermore, in the event that a work is infringed, if the work carries a proper notice, the court will not give any weight to a defendant’s interposition of an innocent infringement defense

keyplyr wrote:

You work is copyrighted (and protected just the same)

So though you may be "technically right" that the notice is not required to gain copyright protection, your assertion that there is no benifit to gained by it is dead wrong.

And regarding the year:
The copyright notice should carry the "date of first publication of an original work". In a website that changes over time, any "new content" added to the site after the original publication is "new original work" and entitled to it's own copyright notification. Sure, you could hang individual copyright notices on each <div> or <table> or <img> as they change, but it is customary to just include the entire range of "first publication dates" in one notice at the bottome of the page.

Amateurish? It's good you added the "IMO" after your comment.

One other thing I will add however; Don't just go arbitrarily changing the copyright notice on your web sites to 2005 next Saturday. You only need to update the date if and when you add new content that needs it's own copyright notification.

[technossomy]

My guess is that the real issue concerns one of usability. A site teeming with copyright notices, disclaimers and terms of use will put users off. Therefore, my suggestion would be for web and content developers to insert a copyright notice with the "&copy;" symbol prepended sparingly and preferably in one place only. If need be, one can use a javascript on the Date() object to have the year inserted and updated automatically.

To indicate freshness of content, likewise, one can use the doc.lastModified() object. This would not indicate a legal statement, and copyright is already applicable by default through the notice on the main page.

[keyplyr]

Furthermore, in the event that a work is infringed, if the work carries a proper notice, the court will not give any weight to a defendant’s interposition of an innocent infringement defense

Lance, the keyword here is "proper notice." All of you using a "whatever looks good" notice would likely be sabotaging the very purpose you hope to achieve. The defendant could very well use it against you.

Anyway, the law says what is a correct notice, not you or me.

[chriswragg]

This is what technossomy was saying

&copy;
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
today=new Date();
y0=today.getFullYear();
//-->
</SCRIPT><SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!---
document.write(y0);
//-->
</SCRIPT>

This writes the copyright symbol and them the current year. You could also add 1998- or something similar after &copy; so it reads (c) 1998-2004