A copyright notice should include the date and name of the owner, and “all rights reserved” is no longer necessary. No notice is needed to protect work, but it can help prevent violations. The official copyright symbol can be used. The value of the work determines the likelihood of winning a lawsuit. Online piracy is a common issue, but website owners may own the copyright. Contacting the webmaster or search engines can help resolve the issue.
The main things to include in a copyright message are the date you are protecting the item and your name or business name. Whichever you use, you or your company own the rights to distribute or copy the item you are protecting. You can include the phrase “all rights reserved,” but this is no longer necessary in most areas, although it can help you retain certain rights if you try to file a complaint against someone for stealing your work.
You should be aware that no copyright notice is actually necessary to protect your work. The moment you finish writing, recording or photographing something, it is copyrighted by law in most places. You may be more likely to prevent potential violators of that law from copying your work if you’ve included a copyright notice.
When writing a copyright notice, you only need to include the date the work was completed or the date you are protecting it and the name of the person or entity that owns the copyright. In most cases, you would be the sole copyright owner. Whether the work is a written piece that has been published or a musical composition that has been purchased by a record company, the copyright may be owned in whole or in part by the company.
In some cases you may choose to include the name of the piece with your copyright message. This isn’t generally necessary if the notice is posted on the work itself, but it doesn’t hurt if you feel better including it. The basic format for writing the message would be: “name of work if included, copyright year by name of owner”. The official copyright symbol, which is usually a “C” within a circle, is also acceptable in lieu of the fully written word.
Keep in mind that if the copyrighted work has no commercial value, your chances of winning a lawsuit are slim. This is true even if you include a copyright message about the work. You should determine the amount your work could reasonably sell for in the market. Unfortunately, unknown writers, musicians, and other artists are unlikely to sell their work for a lot of money, but the work of an unknown artist is also unlikely to be stolen to begin with.
An exception to this rule is the piracy of web articles and other online media. Many written materials and photos posted on the Internet are stolen and resold to other websites. If you’ve sold or given your work to a website, they may own the copyright and it’s their job to track down and deal with stolen content. If you still own the copyright, you can contact the webmaster of any site featuring your work without permission and ask them to remove it, pay to use your work, or add a byline or link to let people know the work is yours. If that doesn’t work, contact the major search engines and report the site.
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