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Can anyone point me to a resource of the advantages of including copyright dates? I've worked with IP lawyers who consider them to be legally useless. Copyright
by vortico 10y ago
Can anyone point me to a resource of the advantages of including copyright dates? I've worked with IP lawyers who consider them to be legally useless. Copyright is applied to a work upon creation and expires n years after the death of the developer. The year of creation has nothing to do with copyright, unless you're trying to prove who created the work, but a year in the copyright notice is a poor way to do this.
- eslaught 10y agoI believe if the work is a "work for hire" (i.e. you were paid by a company to do it instead of doing it for yourself) then the timer for copyright expiry starts on the date the work was put into a tangible medium (rather than after the author's death). So assuming some Python developers do that work on company time, then those copyrights are owned by the company and it is legally relevant to include the year.
- vortico 10y agoOh sorry, you're right. I had my mind in individual hobbyist software projects. For a project with as many contributors as Python, the copyright date should definitely be listed to avoid trying to contact the developers (most of which will be long gone) for the date of creation once you believe the copyright has expired.