Copyright Notice. We are all familiar with copyright notices. They appear on web sites, compact discs, books, virtually everything that is protected by copyright laws.

Copyright Notice - Past U.S. Law

Under previous United States Copyright Law, it was necessary to place the copyright notice on every item containing a protected work. Failure to include a copyright notice on a substantial number of published items could lead to loss of copyright protection. However, about 10 years ago, the United States amended the copyright laws to come into conformance with the Berne Convention on International Copyrights and the laws of many foreign countries.

Copyright Notice - Current U.S. Law

Now, failure to include the copyright notice on published items will not lead to a loss of copyright protection. There are still very good reasons to include the copyright notice on your original works of authorship. But failure to include the notice will not lead to loss of your copyright in the work.

One practical implication of this legal change is that it is no longer safe to assume that copyrightable materials that do not contain the copyright notice are not protected by the copyright laws. Rather, it needs to be assumed that everything that you see on the Internet or otherwise is protected by copyright laws. Lack of a copyright notice does not mean it is not protected.

Copyright Notice - Current Importance

It is still a very good idea to include a copyright notice on your web site and every other publication of items over which you claim copyright protection. It is very difficult for a party that infringes on your copyright to claim a defense based upon "innocent infringement" if your work contains a copyright notice prominently displayed. Additionally, if you fail to include a copyright notice, it is more difficult to prove that an infringement is "willful." Proving that an infringement is willful has a significant impact on the damages you might receive for a proved infringement. Under the copyright laws, once you prove infringement, and assuming you have filed a timely copyright registration, you can elect to receive "statutory damages." This means thati instead of going through having to prove how you are actually damaged by the infringement (and sometimes it is difficult to prove that you were actually damaged), you can elect to take statutory damages of up to $25,000.00. The level of damages increases to $100,000.00 if you prove that the infringement was willful. It is generally much easier to prove that the infringement was willful if your work displays a prominent copyright notice.