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].<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/a/2391555/4323" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/a/2391555/4323</a>
Please note: Copyright notices are not required, they are only used out of habit, ignorance, or as a mild deterrent.<p><a href="http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf</a><p><a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice" rel="nofollow">http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice</a><p><a href="http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p03_copyright_notices" rel="nofollow">http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p03_copyright_no...</a>
Useful snippet. However I'd argue that in most cases it's deceiving to viewers of a site to tell them that content was recently changed or has been constantly changing when it's the same thing that's been there in the 90s.
This is not how copyright works. One of the biggest misconceptions on the web.<p>Well not unless you are worried about your copyright in 100 years.<p>You could have copyright 2001, that doesn't mean it expires 2002, or 2003 or even 2015.<p>Given that Disney characters and stories would come into public domain soon, you can also easily bet copyright will be extended for hundreds of years by Congress.<p>In 1976 Congress extended copyright to 50 years beyond the authors life. This means if you made your site in 2000 and you died today, the copyright would still be good until 2050. And you don't even need a notice for copyright in the USA, it is copyright unless stated otherwise by default.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
It's also helpful to put a date somewhere obvious on <i>all</i> pages, especially blog postings and the like.<p>Readers will thank you that they aren't forced to scan the whole page to see whether what they're reading is recent or not.
I wonder if it is really needed to make a copyright claim. And even if so, wouldn't it make more sense to date it to its creation? If i am not mistaken, the duration until it would be invalidated is also based on the date of publishing it. Or some date after your death.
People are talking about how updating the date isn't legal unless something copyrightable has changed.<p>I'm not a lawyer, but I've been in meetings where management decided the year needs to update, so that's when I started using this snippet:<p>in ruby html.erb: <%= Time.now.year %>
Google does not show copyright notice or a year in their footer anymore.<p>I assume Google knows better and starting this year we are doing the same with our web site.