The Footer Copyright Notice : 8th July 2008
Almost all websites contain some sort of copyright notice in their footer (e.g. Copyright © 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.). But what’s the best way to do this? We’re going to take you through the requirements for your copyright notice, and a nifty JS (or PHP) trick for ensuring that your copyright year is always up to date.
What’s required?
The humble copyright notice is always useful to show in the footer, as a way of stating your claim over a site. Interestingly, however, it is not required for you to have copyright over the graphics, content and artwork of your site. This comes into place as soon as you’ve created the content and placed it in the public domain. Placing a copyright notice is still advisable to deter potential plagiarists and stake your claim. The generally accepted format is:
Copyright © 2008 Design Shack
There are a couple of points to make:
- Make sure that the year is current (see below)
- Use the HTML code © to display the copyright symbol, ensuring that your site’s XHTML is valid
- Ensure the word ‘copyright’ appears
If you have specific requirements for how people can use certain content of your site, using a Creative Commons License would be advised. This allows you to select how content can be used in a more official and controlled manner.
Future proof
When creating a website, it can be incredibly tempting to simply drop in the basic requirements, and not think too heavily about future proofing your site. One of the most telling signs that a site isn’t regularly updated is an out of date copyright year. This can be very easily made automatic, through the use of a simple piece of PHP or JS code:
<?php echo date("Y"); ?>
Alternatively, if you would prefer to use JavaScript, the following works well:
<script type="text/javascript"> var d = new Date() document.write(d.getFullYear()) </script>
Stick with one of these methods, and you’ll never be kicking yourself in February again for not updating the copyright year!
Comments and Discussion
Nice post! However there are 2 things I'd like to add: 1. %copy; does not validate in XHTML and should be written as © 2. Making the date display dynamic, server side or client side does not make sense for something that changes once a year. It's a small optimization, but it's logical this way. Just update it on January 1st !!! :)
Javascript is not read / indexed by search engines. So it will still 2007 when its 2008.. Stick to serverside, or do it manually.
You do not need to have the current year if you have not made any changes to it in the year, as far as I was aware. Note: I am not a lawyer and should not be taken as legal advice.
@christopher Yeah, I tend to do a date range for that reason. With this year to cover the current content and the year of creation for the origional content. Not sure though. If you look at the BBC website at http://bbc.co.uk they have their year in roman numerals as it is in their tv shows. Nice touch.
Good stuff! Makes it a lot easier when you have a heap of websites to maintain. Will use this from now on :)
Good stuff! Makes it a lot easier when you have a heap of websites to maintain. Will use this from now on :)
@Mihai; Thats because its "©", not "%copy;". There is no problem validating the code, in fact it's the better solution, using © may cause problems between different documents for beginners that don't know about all the different charsets.
In the Netherlands, it's not necessary to place a copyright notice on your website, because it's automatically protected by the Dutch copyright law. I read that the (C)-sign doesn't have any legal meaning in Europe.
@Daniel I wrote & # 169; but the site displayed it as the © sign. For clarifications: Don't use & copy; use & #169;
I think Jasper is right that in Europe one does not need to use a copyright notice, all content is automatically protected. However it's couldn't hurt to put it on there. @Mihai: & copy; validates just fine, just tested it on the W3C XHTML validator. Also, why wouldn't you implement an automatically updated year?
@Ruud I wouldn't implement it automatically because you get the overhead of displaying the year with server side programming, instead of putting it statically and changing it once a year. For small sites it's not relevant but for bigger sites you need all the optimization you can do. At least this is what I think is right. I don't see the point in putting in the date automatically as even if it lags at the beginning of each new year, it still isn't as big of a problem.
Or you can simply use funfooter. It is a cool FREE service that displays footer on your webpages and blogs and keeps the year current!
Here is the URL for funFooter. www.funfooter.com Its free, so give a shot
@Mihai Of course if your already doing things server side (Content Management) the addition of this would not add any overhead.
PHP or JS is a bit trick way that never needed to update again. :) nice!
http://www.webweaver.nu/tools/copyright-generator/
I prefer to use the following snippet (using PHP): © 2008 That way it starts with Copyright 2008, then becomes Copyright 2008—2009, etc.
I love when people reference the law. Not nearly enough people are familiar with the law in regards to their design business! You state: "This comes into place as soon as you’ve created the content and placed it in the public domain." You are partially correct in terms of US copyright. In the US, you do not need to display the copyright symbol because as soon as you create something in a *tangible form*, it is copyrighted. Tangible can be digital or paper and ink. It does not have to be in the public view first. That means that your manuscript you penned back when you were 12 and is in your basement chest is copyrighted. That also means that this response, as I am typing it is copyrighted. A common misnomer is that something must be dated to be copyrighted, or must be filed with the United States Copyright Office (USCO). That is false. Where these two things will help you should you need to go to court, they are not necessary. For more articles about Intellectual Property specifically regarding US (though many are international) you may be interested in subscribing to my RSS. My blog can be found at http://www.cljdesign.com/blog/ Casey L. Jones CLJ Design Paralegal turned Designer!
