Are Explicit Copyright Notices Necessary for Weblogs and Web Pages?

Dave, I see some sites with and some sites without a copyright line. Do you know if someone must follow an official process before adding this line? Such as (C) 2002-2004 by Dave Taylor, etc…

In general, copyright law is defined by the international Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which covers written materials, photography, illustrations, sketches, etc., but doesn’t cover “news of the day or to miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information”.

A few important points from the Berne Convention: Copyright lasts for the life of the author and fifty years after his or her death. There’s also Fair Use, which allows for (in typically vague legal wording) “quotations from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public, providing that their making is compatible with fair practice”.

Here’s the most important paragraph in this long international agreement though…

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