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by vincentdm 4008 days ago
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 :-)

1 comments

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 interposiĀ­ 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)