What do I write for no copyright claim?

This site is for educational purposes only!!

**FAIR USE**

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 

Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. 

FAIR USE DEFINITION:

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use)

Fair use is a doctrine in the United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship.  It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test.  The term “fair use” originated in the United States.  A similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions.  Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright. 

U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE- FAIR USE DEFINITION

(Source: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html)

One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.  This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright law (title 17, U.S. Code).  One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of “fair use”.  The doctrine of fair use has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years and has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law. 

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.  Section 107 also sets out in four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair: 

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

2. The nature of the copyrighted work

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

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

The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself. It does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work.

The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The Copyright Office cannot give this permission.

When it is impracticable to obtain permission, use of copyrighted material should be avoided unless the doctrine of fair use would clearly apply to the situation. The Copyright Office can neither determine if a certain use may be considered fair nor advise on possible copyright violations. If there is any doubt, it is advisable to consult an attorney.

FL-102, Revised September 2010

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 “©” 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.