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Important to protect the copyright materials you create in your teaching or research: writing a copyright notice.

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One of the most common questions I get asked is "Does the copyright notice in my footer look ok?"

Though I'm quick to remind everyone that you don't need to have a copyright symbol or any kind of notice on your work for it to be copyright protected, at least not since 1978 in the U.S., having a copyright footer on your site is probably a good idea just because of the large amount of confusion on this issue and it does put potential infringers on notice, reducing "innocent infringer" claims.

Besides, you don't want people believing that your work is available for copying freely if it isn't.

So what should you put in your copyright footer? The formula is actually very simple and there's only a few things that you'll likely want to include.

So, this should only take a moment to master though it can save a lot of headaches, time and money down the road.

The Four Elements

Typically, a copyright notice contains four different elements, each of which are brief but important.

1. The Copyright Symbol

2. The Year of the Creation

3. The Name of the Author

4. A Rights Statement

The copyright symbol is exactly what it sounds like, either the famous ©, a (c) or the word "Copyright". However, most prefer to use the symbol because it is both smaller and more recognizeable.

There are several ways to make the symbol though, if you're using HTML you can simply use the "&copy;" command to have the symbol appear what you want. If you aren't editing a webpage, you can easily create a copyright symbol in Windows by hitting ALT+0169 (holding the ALT key and typing "0169") and in Mac you simply press Option+G.

The year the work is created is simply when it was finished published (with a blog this is usually the same as when it was finished, thanks @internetcases for fixing my brain lapse). This can be tricky on blogs as they can cover several years. In those cases, you can simply use a hyphen to designate a range, such as "2006-2011". If you use WordPress (or most other advanced CMSes) you can have the latter date update automatically with just a bit of code.

The name is just your name or whatever you use to identify yourself. It can also be your business name, your site name, your pseudonym or anything else as appropriate so long as it designates who the copyright holder is.

Finally, a rights statement is nothing more than an indication in the rights you hold in the work. If you don't wish to allow any copying (or just want everyone to ask permission), simply say "All Rights Reserved". If you use a Creative Commons License, you likely already have this on your site but may want to further clarify with "Some Rights Reserved". Finally, if you want to give all rights away, simply say "No Rights Reserved" and offer a clear dedication to the public domain.

All in all, it should only take you a few seconds to write a good copyright notice, but if you want any further guidance, here are a few examples below:

Tying it Together

Very quickly, here are a few examples of copyright notices that you can either work from, copy or otherwise use.

Single Year, Real Name, All Rights Reserved

© 2011 John Doe All Rights Reserved

Multi-Year, Real Name, All Rights Reserved

© 2005-2011 John Doe All Rights Reserved

Single Year, Real Name, Some Rights Reserved

© 2011 John Doe Some Rights Reserved

Multi-Year, Real Name, All Rights Reserved

© 2005-2011 John Doe All Rights Reserved

Single Year, Site Name, All Rights Reserved

© 2011 mydomain.com All Rights Reserved

Obviously, the list goes on, but you should be able to understand some of the ways you can display the notice. You can also, as mentioned above, replace the symbol with the word copyright or a "(c)" though the symbol is usually preferred.

Bottom Line

Since, for most of the world, there's no requirement for there to even be such a notice, there's no real rule as to what should be in it.

The main thing is to convey all of the information that others would expect from a copyright notice and the four things above should relay it fine. However, bear in mind it doesn't have to be in the notice itself, as long as the information is somewhere on your site, as with a Creative Commons notice.

That being said, there's also no rule that says copyright notices have to be boring. There are plenty of creative ones out there though that is a topic for another day.

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How to Write a Copyright Notice - Plagiarism Today

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One of the most common questions I get asked is "Does the copyright notice in my footer look ok?"

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This is a really helpful, interactive tool to help you learn more about US copyright law, registering a copyright work and filing a claim.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright | U.S. Copyright Office

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The U.S. Copyright Office answers frequently asked questions about copyright, registration, and services.

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Dig into the US government's extensive collection of fair use and copyright law violations at copyright.gov to see if there is precedence for your particular situation.

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U.S. Supreme Court First Circuit Second Circuit Third Circuit

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AWESOME place to find millions of open source, creative common and free resources.

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Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

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Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to texts, movies & music, as well as 624 billion archived web pages.

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Copyright and Fair Use Cheat Sheet for Teachers

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Copyright and Fair Use Cheat Sheet for Teachers

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From the University of Chicago

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Using copyrighted material in your teaching

Fair Use

Copyright law provides for the principle, commonly called "fair use" that the reproduction of copyright works for certain limited, educational purposes, does not constitute copyright infringement. The Copyright Act establishes a four factor test, the "fair use test," to use to determine whether a use of a copyrighted work is fair use that does not require the permission of the copyright owner. The fair use test is highly fact specific, and much can turn on seemingly insignificant variations on the proposed use.

To determine whether a proposed use is a fair use, you must consider the following four factors, on which we elaborate more below:

1. Purpose: The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature, or is for nonprofit education purposes.

2. Nature: The nature of the copyrighted work.

3. Amount: The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.

4. Effect: The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work.

To establish the strongest basis for fair use, consider and apply the four factors along the lines of these suggestions. You may also want to use the Fair Use Checklist to help evaluate the nature of your use.

1. Purpose of the Use

Materials should be used in class only for the purpose of serving the needs of specified educational programs.

Students should not be charged a fee specifically or directly for the materials.

2. Nature of the Work

Only those portions of the work relevant to the educational objectives of the course should be used in the classroom.

The law of fair use applies more narrowly to highly creative works; accordingly, avoid substantial excerpts from novels, short stories, poetry, modern art images, and other such materials.

Instructors should not distribute copies of "consumable" materials such as test forms and workbook pages that are meant to be used and repurchased.

3. Amount of the Work

Materials used in the classroom will generally be limited to brief works or brief excerpts from longer works. Examples: a single chapter from a book, an individual article from a journal, and individual news articles.

The amount of the work used should be related directly to the educational objectives of the course.

4. Effect of the Use on the Market for the Original

The instructor should consider whether the copying harms the market or sale of the copyrighted material.

Materials used in the class should include a citation to the original source of publication and a form of a copyright notice.

Instructor should consider whether materials are reasonably available and affordable for students to purchase - whether as a book, course pack, or other format.

Rules of Thumb

The University of Chicago has not adopted official guidelines for determining fair use. However, the following web sites offer rules of thumb and other tools to assist faculty, staff and students in determining whether a use is a fair use in a variety of educational contexts.
Stanford University: Measuring Fair Use
University of Washington: Guidelines for Fair Use in Education
ALA Fair Use EVALUATOR

If your proposed use is not addressed by these guidelines, you will need to analyze the use under the four factor fair use test and/or Get Help. In cases of doubt, it is always most desirable to get permission.

Educational Guidelines
CONFU: The Conference on Fair Use
Multimedia Guidelines for Fair Use
Guidelines for Digital Images
The Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) in the late 1990s was an attempt to create guidelines for fair use which could be mutually agreed upon by copyright holders and educators. In the end, the group failed to come to consensus and the Guidelines were never adopted. Many still use the guidelines as a framework for thinking about fair use.

For commentary on their use, see:

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Using copyrighted material in your teaching Copyright law provides for the principle, commonly called "fair use" that the reproduction of copyright works for certain limited, educational purposes, does not constitute copyright infringement. The Copyright Act establishes a four factor test, the "fair use test," to use to determine whether a use of a copyrighted work is fair use that does not require the permission of the copyright owner.

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Guidelines for academic fair use from the Association of research libraries.

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This is my picture... so the copyright belongs to ME. You can't use it nah nah nah nah. :)

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This work is created by the federal government and is thus in the public domain. Anyone can edit, modify, copy and distribute this work without notifying the author or giving credit.

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Bedrock Exhumed from the Deep - This color composite cutout shows an example of such bedrock that may originate from as deep as 2 miles beneath the surface. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (less than 1 km across, 260 km above the surface; www.uahirise.org/ESP_011523_1695)

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Here is an example of a work on flickr that cannot be modified and then distributed. Original is Tambako The Jaguar

by Tambako on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/tambako/

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The next portrait of Villy. Yes, I have many pictures of him!

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Here is an example of an "attribution" licensed work. The original creation is called Atlantic Civilisation Painting In Tate Modern - London by Jim Linwood.

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Atlantic Civilisation Painting In Tate Modern - London.

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1953 painting on canvas by Andre Fougeron satirising the Americanisation of Europe.

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Copyright, Exceptions, and Fair Use: Crash Course Intellectual Property Part 3

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Copyright, Exceptions, and Fair Use: Crash Course Intellectual Property Part 3

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This is COPYRIGHT INFORMATION by the Crash Course channel on YouTube.

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Copyright, Exceptions, and Fair Use: Crash Course Intellectual Property #3