
17 days into 2019 and companies still haven't updated their copyright year - tmartty
https://tomasmartty.com/blog/post/google-please-update-your-copyright-year
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gpm
If you haven't updated the page since 2018, surely the page's copyright is
from 2018 not 2019, and the copyright expires in 2018 + just short of forever
instead of 2019 + just short of forever.

It seems like having an auto updating footer like this advocates would be the
most mild form of fraud ever, or something.

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JdeBP
A copyright declaration is supposed to contain _the year of first publication_
, which is _not_ always the current year. The fundamental premise of this
article is wrong.

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acura
Is the copyright notice really something that matters anything?

And if so doesn't forward dating your copyright claim invalidate your claim?
At least if you don't include a starting year.

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arghwhat
It has no legal effect. Many years back, a cocktail of copyright statements
and "All rights reserved" were needed to enforce your rights, but this has not
been the case for a long time.

~~~
tzs
> It has no legal effect

That's not quite correct in the US. A copyright notice may help you in the US
if you sue someone for damages for infringing your copyright, by making it
harder for them to prove that they are an "innocent infringer".

An "innocent infringer" is someone who did not know and had no reason to
believe that they were infringing. If the defendant can prove that they are
such (and they bear the burden of proof for this), it greatly reduces the
lower bound on the range of damages the court can award.

Including a copyright notice nips that possibility in the bud [1]:

> If a notice of copyright in the form and position specified by this section
> appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant in a copyright
> infringement suit had access, then no weight shall be given to such a
> defendant’s interposition of a defense based on innocent infringement in
> mitigation of actual or statutory damages, except as provided in the last
> sentence of section 504(c)(2).

(The exception is for some non-profits, libraries, public broadcasters, etc.,
in the case where they thought their use was fair use and turn out to be
wrong, and allows reducing damages to $0 for them)

[1]
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/401](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/401)

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arghwhat
How in the world would the "innocent infringer" defense play out, considering
that any and all copyrightable content is implicitly copyrighted at its
conception? Especially considering that the declaration does not assist in
distinguishing between copyrightable and non-copyrightable aspects within
publication.

Saying that the user did not understand that content was copyrightable seems
akin to claiming that they did not know stealing was wrong. It is the burden
of the individual to know the laws they must follow, and not knowing them is
not a valid defense to the best of my knowledge.

The U.S. has such a weird legal system.

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drcongo
It's 2019 and this site still isn't able to handle a bit of traffic from HN.

~~~
coding123
;)

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VBprogrammer
Isn't this totally pointless anyway? Certainly under UK law there is no need
to assert copyright in order to claim it.

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JdeBP
There hasn't been a need for copyright declarations (in order to assert
copyright) in U.S. law since 1989, either.

A quick précis: "All rights reserved." is totally pointless chaff. A copyright
declaration still has a modicum of use, but most of the pre-1989 requirements
for it have gone.

* [http://jdebp.eu./FGA/law-copyright-all-rights-reserved.html](http://jdebp.eu./FGA/law-copyright-all-rights-reserved.html)

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buboard
is the javascript way of taking the client's year legally sound ?

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arghwhat
No, as the declaration is not "current year" but "year of publication".

But, just remove the thing. It's not required.

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buboard
but it makes my site look "professional"

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citilife
I don't really understand listing a year in any case...

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JdeBP
You _really_ won't understand the convention that some people have of listing
it in Roman numerals, then. (-:

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buboard
you have to give credit to movies for that

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zrail
Alternatively, just don’t list a year.

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hateful
If a lot of programmers are like me, then they list whatever the client pays
them to list.

Of course, we can, and should suggest alternatives. But then they'd need to
listen!

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treycopeland
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