[richardwigley]

>> This thoughtless behaviour reminds me of the thousands of websites which include a "(c) YYYY" copyright notice in their footers, despite this being completely irrelevant in modern copyright law.

I'll bite :-) Are you automatically covered then? - companies like Apple still do it .... 'Copyright © 2015 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.'

[bontoJR]

Yes, you are.

> A website — graphics, content, visual elements — is copyrighted at the time of development. So putting the copyright notice on the bottom of a site states that the material displayed is not to be used without permission of the owner. In fact, you don’t even need the notice to claim copyright; the law eliminated the requirement of public notice in 1989.

Source: http://www.sitepoint.com/what-it-means-to-copyright-a-websit...

[hmage]

This source covers only US copyright law, not EU copyright law, not UK copyright law, not Russian copyright law, not Canadian copyright law, etc.

[M2Ys4U]

Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention:[0]

"The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality"

[0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection...

[vincentdm]

As I understand it (but I am no lawyer), it was only a requirement in the US until 1989. So if you are a company operating outside the US and none of your copyrighted material dates from before that, I don't see why you should include it. Also, for websites there are many more reliable methods of demonstrating the time of creation.

So for some it might have a use, but it seems to me that thousands of webmasters (including myself) have been copying this pre-1989 US-only best-practice, just because it is nice to have something to put it the footer :-)

[seandougall]

The Copyright Office does suggest that it could still be a good idea, even though it's no longer required:

> Use of the notice may be important because it informs the public that the work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of first publication. Furthermore, in the event that a work is infringed, if a proper notice of copyright 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 interposi­ tion of a defense based on innocent infringement in mitigation of actual or statutory damages, except as provided in section 504(c)(2) of the copyright law. Innocent infringement occurs when the infringer did not realize that the work was protected.

(http://copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf)

[ma2rten]

It looks professional.

[cartoonfoxes]

And it has the practical value of informing you than someone maintaining the site has at least looked at it within the last year or so.

[seandougall]

Or had the forethought ten years ago to add:

&copy; <?php echo strftime('%Y'); ?>

;-)

[damoncali]

You're supposed to put the year the material was copyrighted, not the current year.