Apologies if this is dealt with elsewhere.
My software has a statement "Copyright 2007 - 2020 ScruffyDuck Software"
Does this mean anything special to include dates. The software originates from 2007 but is still being developed in 2022.
Is there an implication that the copyright expired in 2020. How should copyright be expressed for software or something else that develops over time
Finally the application uses specific code from other developers which is copyright to them and they are acknowledged in the about box and documentation.
Many thanks in advance
Jon
Copyright Statement with Dates
-
ScruffyDuck
- Regular Member
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:36 pm
Re: Copyright Statement with Dates
Hi Jon,
The dates have no real significance. There is no legal requirement to provide a copyright notice, but doing so at least reminds anyone who encounters your software that copyright exists and it may deter some people from infringing your copyright. Where a copyright notice is displayed, you have used the correct format, namely copyright symbol © or the word Copyright plus a date, or range of dates, together with the name of the person or organisation claiming the copyright. The actual term of copyright (in the UK at least) is solely determined by the lifetime of the author of the work plus 70 years after his/her death. If you were publishing your work in the USA and Scruffy Duck was an incorporated company, the copyright term there would be 120 years from the date the work was made, or 95 years from the date it was first published, which ever is the shorter. Obviously in that case, providing a notice with the date the work was made has a legal significance.
As for the incorporation of other people's work within your work, assuming this is done with their permission, the resulting work or piece of software will generally become a a work of joint authorship, and the duration of copyright will be based of the last of the joint authors to die. You don't need to include the creation dates of their individual contributions if this would be become unwieldy. A work of joint authorship occurs when it is impossible disentangle the individual contributions of each team member once the work is complete. Most software falls into this category. However where a work consists of elements which remain separable, the resulting collaboration is known as a work of co-authorship and each part remains the copyright of its author, such that any exploitation of the finished work needs the agreement of all of the co-authors. A classic example of this would be a song where one person composes the music and another the lyrics.
The dates have no real significance. There is no legal requirement to provide a copyright notice, but doing so at least reminds anyone who encounters your software that copyright exists and it may deter some people from infringing your copyright. Where a copyright notice is displayed, you have used the correct format, namely copyright symbol © or the word Copyright plus a date, or range of dates, together with the name of the person or organisation claiming the copyright. The actual term of copyright (in the UK at least) is solely determined by the lifetime of the author of the work plus 70 years after his/her death. If you were publishing your work in the USA and Scruffy Duck was an incorporated company, the copyright term there would be 120 years from the date the work was made, or 95 years from the date it was first published, which ever is the shorter. Obviously in that case, providing a notice with the date the work was made has a legal significance.
As for the incorporation of other people's work within your work, assuming this is done with their permission, the resulting work or piece of software will generally become a a work of joint authorship, and the duration of copyright will be based of the last of the joint authors to die. You don't need to include the creation dates of their individual contributions if this would be become unwieldy. A work of joint authorship occurs when it is impossible disentangle the individual contributions of each team member once the work is complete. Most software falls into this category. However where a work consists of elements which remain separable, the resulting collaboration is known as a work of co-authorship and each part remains the copyright of its author, such that any exploitation of the finished work needs the agreement of all of the co-authors. A classic example of this would be a song where one person composes the music and another the lyrics.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007
-
ScruffyDuck
- Regular Member
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:36 pm
Re: Copyright Statement with Dates
Thanks Andy. This is such a useful forum 