What is the point of “© 2020 CompanyName” in website footers?

According to The United States Copyright Office (https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf):

Advantages to Using a Copyright Notice

Although notice is optional for unpublished works, foreign works, or works published on or after March 1, 1989, using a copyright notice carries the following benefits:

• Notice makes potential users aware that copyright is claimed in the work.

• In the case of a published work, a notice may prevent a defendant in a copyright infringement action from attempting to limit his or her liability for damages or injunctive relief based on an innocent infringement defense.

• Notice identifies the copyright owner at the time the work was first published for parties seeking permission to use the work.

• Notice identifies the year of first publication, which may be used to determine the term of copyright protection in the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire.

• Notice may prevent the work from becoming an orphan work by identifying the copyright owner and specifying the term of the copyright.

Copyright is automatic. You don't need a notice, you own the copyright as soon as it's fixed into a tangible medium – basically when you hit save. It can confer some advantages in some countries if you sue somebody for copyright infringement. Are you planning on doing that rather than simply forcing a takedown if somebody copies your website? No? Then don't bother.

Being realistic, you see copyright notices on websites because people see them elsewhere and assume they are necessary and add them to their own sites without thought. Then other people see those notices and assume the same thing. It's a vicious circle. Lots of people copying others who don't know what they are doing.

It's why every year on New Year's Day you get a bunch of people going "It's 20xx, update your footers!" and more people saying you should just automatically show the current year. The copyright notice isn't there to tell you what the current year is – everybody knows what the current year is – it's there to tell you what year the work was first published.

Marissa Mayer, in an early IO keynote, said she put the copyright note at the bottom, though arguably meaningless, to let people know the page was "done loading". She said that in initial user studies she did of the minimalist Google homepage (Sergey said it was that way because "I don't do HTML") people would just sit there doing nothing but watching the screen. When she asked what they were doing, they replied "I'm waiting for the rest of it". Websites loaded so slowly in '98, and ironically were also utterly covered in links and images and crap, that we were all accustomed to just sitting there until the pages fully appeared. So, while she didn't think the copyright necessarily meant anything from a legal perspective, it worked to tell people "there's nothing more to wait for, please proceed."

Even though the answer to your question is "no", many lawyers will advise you to add the copyright symbol anyway. Even if the symbol is not operative by law, it still operates on the minds of potential copyists who don't know whether it matters. In this regard, the copyright symbol is kinda like the "protected by ADT" sign in a front yard: It's not protection per se, but it might serve as a deterrent.

On the other hand, the likelihood that a mere copyright symbol will deter economically-consequential copying from a website/webapp is quite low. Therefore, as a former founder and current law student (and definitely not a lawyer yet), I'd advise you to do whatever the hell makes sense for your business for ancillary reasons. Add the symbol if you think you're dealing with superstitious folks to whom a copyright symbol lends an aura of credibility; omit it if you are going for a clean aesthetic.

As mentioned, the Berne Convention means anything that can be copyrighted (creative works: stories, articles, art, etc. - but not data or ideas) are automatically copyrighted.

But in US law, if something infringes your copyright, you can get more damages if the court rules it was "willful" infringement. I'm not totally sure it's settled that a copyright notice makes a difference, but I'm guessing big companies think it can't hurt. (Also keep in mind whether you're as willing as big companies to go to court, or if the most you practically want to do is have a lawyer send someone a polite but firm letter.)

Another thing you can do if you want things to go better in court (and isn't really worthwhile otherwise) is to register your work with the Copyright Office.

There is no need to use the copyright symbol or make other declaration before having copyright protection. Under the Berne Convention, copyright is automatic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

> Under the Convention, copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation without being asserted or declared. An author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright in countries adhering to the Convention. As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all copyrights in the work and to any derivative works, unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them or until the copyright expires.

For the US, see https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#mywork :

> Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

> ... In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”

That "Copyright Basics" links to https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf :

> Applying a copyright notice to a work has not been required since March 1, 1989, but may still provide practical and legal benefits. Notice typically consists of the copyright symbol or the word “Copyright,” the name of the copyright owner, and the year of first publication. Placing a copyright notice on a work is not a substitute for registration.

You don’t have to write your name on your property to know it’s yours. You don’t need a (c) symbol and your name to be able to lay claim to ownership.

But if someone takes your property it’s helpful in getting it back if the thing they claim to be theirs has your name on it.

With copyable property, especially where copying might reasonably be expected such as with source code or content on a website, it’s helpful for other parties to know who they should ask if they want to take a copy. (The license may also require that the original owners name be included on copies.)

You can also put the license right there too. Especially if the license is “no license” aka All Rights Reserved.

(C) 2020 gorgoiler, all rights reserved.

I have a super simple explanation for this:

- users see copyright notices on every big brand site, so if you don't include a copyright notice, you risk not looking like a big brand. Adding it is a simple way to look more legitimate.

- everyone else does it, so it must be a good idea and be done for important legal reasons, right?

Because the 70% of the population who thinks it’s necessary won’t take you seriously if it’s missing. Sad but true.

There isn't any, really. Your stuff is automatically copyrighted as soon as you create it, and the ability to recoup damages from infringement depends on your registration of a copyrightable work with the LoC rather than putting a copyright notice on it. However, it used to be that case that inclusion of copyright notice was essential and forgetting to include it could lead to a work falling into the public domain.

In the event that you're litigating a copyright claim it is slightly easier to do so if you have copyright statements littered about, but on the other hand a vexatious counterparty would just get into the weeds of arguing that they were either not prominent enough or overbroad (perhaps because you were using a lot of open source or public domain assets).

1) Google originally added it back in the day to show the end of the page (their sparse search page looked like it hadn't rendered to a focus group.)

2) In the USA, you don't actually need to do anything, but some countries, like Japan, prefer explicit copyright registration, etc.

Same question but what about trademark or registered symbols? You see them on even store signs and I've always wondered if they're the least bit helpful. Is Kellogg's really worried you'll try to steal their logo if they don't put (tm) after it?

Back in the early 00’s I worked for a tiny web design agency that mainly did e-commerce (Yahoo Store, post-Viaweb). As you might imagine the first week or so of January was sleepy, people are coming back to work, sales are low, nobody is going to add new products or want changes for a while.

But, people were very keen on getting their copyright notices updated with the new year. It was a welcome trickle of revenue to spend an hour going in and updating it.

Just about everyone agreed that it was pointless, but they still wanted it done.

Copyright is automatic. A copyright notice will not protect you in case anyone copies your work.

If you want to protect your work, submit it to a timestamping service with your name/signature in it. Then you can at least show that at the given instant you were in possession of the work. If another party can't do the same for the same work at an earlier timepoint, then you have a stronger case.

If you do not register your work with the US Copyright Office you can not claim statutory damages in a lawsuit, only real damages.

I keep one at the bottom of the page so that users know not to scroll any further.

A page without decoration of some sort at the bottom looks naked, bottomless, and what better decorator to use than the one used by every single site out there?

There is a non-legal point that I sometimes find useful when I'm browsing: it illustrates that someone updated the website in 2020.

(or at least that they future-proofed it).

In this sense, it shows the website is alive.

To show who’s maintaining their websites. It’s a tell about the company when it still says 2019.

Looks better and more professional.

Anything original that you write is copyrighted at its completion. There is no requirement to register copyright (in the US at least). The website is copyrighted regardless of the notice, but that notice can alert readers to the copyright claim.

The real answer to this question that people are missing:

- The website you are looking at most likely uses Shopify as a CMS, they add this automatically to any store created with their software.

So no, people don't add this on purpose. There around 500,000 active Shopify stores according to recent statistics so this is why it is so common to see it.