The Copyright Act specifies the form and position of the copyright notice for “visually perceptible copies,” which are those that can be seen or read. The notice must be “affixed to the copies in such a manner and location as to give reasonable notice of the claim of copyright,”[1] and should include the following elements:
- the symbol © or the word “Copyright,” or the abbreviation “Copr.”;
- the year of first publication of the work; and
- the name of the copyright owner.[2]
Although copyright notices provide important information, watch out for notices that try to tell you what you cannot do, like the notice from BNA that we printed at the beginning of this chapter. Here’s another one that appears on the verso of the title page of Haynes Johnson’s The Best of Times: American in the Clinton Years:
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This notice suggests that you cannot copy anything from this book. That is not true. A simple copyright notice cannot dilute your rights. You do not agree to be bound by a copyright notice simply by buying a book. You will honor binding contracts—usually for digital products—to which you have agreed. But just because a copyright notice says “you cannot do this” does not mean that you can’t.
On the other hand, some publications expressly permit certain copying without payment of fees. Most scholarly journals published by U.S. law schools have a notice similar to the one you find in the William and Mary Law Review:
Copyright © 2012 by the William and Mary Law Review. Except as otherwise provided, the author of each article in this issue has granted permission for copies of that article to be made available for classroom use, provided that (1) the copies are distributed at or below cost, (2) the author and the William and Mary Law Review are identified, (3) proper notice of copyright is affixed to each copy and (4) the William and Mary Law Review is notified of the use.
