This is entirely the right way to see things. I'd like to emphasize that a copyright notice' purpose is to serve as evidence, should a copyright claim be made.

This is entirely the right way to see things. I'd like to emphasize that a copyright notice' purpose is to serve as evidence, should a copyright claim be made. As you said, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish a copyright. There's no harm in putting a copyright notice on uncopyrightable material. With that understanding, including a copyright notice just makes sense. If you're AT&T you have two options. You can tell your engineers to just always include the copyright notice, or you can ask your engineers to understand copyright law well enough to decide whether the notice is called for. The decision is pretty obvious. EDIT: Ohh, there is a third option. You can pay lawyers to review every code file.