Displaying Copyright Notices
Although a copyright notice is no longer required to protect a work under copyright law, it still should be placed on all published works. For any work published after March 1, 1989, the copyright notice is not mandatory. It is entirely up to the author of the work.
There are reasonable benefits for placing a copyright notice, though. It puts potential infringers on notice that the work is protected, it prevents anyone from claiming innocence if they do infringe, and it identifies the author and year of publication if someone wants to make contact for permissions.
An official copyright notice has three elements: A copyright symbol(), the year the work was published and the name of the copyright owner. If the work is unpublished the copyright notice should read, “Unpublished work,” followed by the year and the copyright owner’s name.
The copyright notice should always be attached to the work in such a manner that it gives reasonable notice of the copyright claim. In bound published work, it usually goes on a title page. On CDs or disks, the copyright notice goes on the CD or is programmed to display when that CD is placed in a play drive.
Whether you choose to display the copyright notice or not, it is always best practice to register the copyright with the Library of Congress through an application. The fee is $45 and the copyright is effective from the moment you file the application.
For all copyrighted works bar those that are first published in a handful of North American and South American countries, the assertion “All rights reserved.” in a copyright declaration is now irrelevant. Moreover, for copyrighted works that are first published outside of North America and South America, the phrase has always been irrelevant.
