Although not mandatory, using such notices costs nothing and may help to deter infringement, because the notice advises third parties that the work is protected by copyright and cannot be copied without your permission. Notices can also help you win greater money damages if you successfully sue someone for copying your software.
A work is "published," for copyright purposes, when copies are sold, licensed, rented, lent, or otherwise distributed to the public. It is relatively easy to establish that your software is "published. Selling copies to the public through retail outlets including online downloads , publishing code in a magazine, selling a program at a widely attended computer show, and allowing a number of educational institutions to use your program without restriction are all examples of publication.
Although the law surrounding online software and apps continues to develop, making your software broadly available through these channels normally qualifies as publication. Accordingly, all such programs should carry a proper copyright notice in order to achieve maximum copyright protection.
However, publication occurs only when software is made available to the general public on an unrestricted basis. Distributing copies of software to a restricted group of users such as your own development team , might not constitute formal publication. For example, sending copies to a few friends or beta testers would not constitute a publication. Similarly, software licensed to a select group of end users who sign license agreements that impose confidentiality requirements is probably not "published" for notice purposes.
The same is true if you give your software to employees for testing. Finally, publication does not occur for copyright notice purposes when software is made available only for use on a time-shared computer system or displayed on a computer terminal for example, in an online library catalog.
If unsure whether your software has been published for copyright notice purposes, the best course is to assume that it has been, and include a copyright notice. There is generally little harm in doing so. There are technical requirements as to what a copyright notice must contain if it's to serve its purpose of preventing an innocent infringer defense "I had no idea this code belonged to you! The U. But it is often very hard to show exactly how much monetary damage a copyright infringement has caused.
So even if you can prove infringement, you may not be able to show very much in the way of actual damages. In other words, relying on the recovery of actual damages creates a substantial risk that you will lose money bringing the suit.
Your Email Address. This article will give you a quick overview to software copyright and its basics. What is Software Copyright? How to copyright software Software copyright is predominantly used by software developers and proprietary software owners to prevent unauthorized copying of their software. Are you a software developer looking to sell more? You might also be interested in:.
We will go through its main concepts and how to integrate with 10Duke, including delegation of authentication, product configuration […]. Read more. Categories Software Licensing. Digital Rights Management vs. Digital Rights Management and Software Licensing both deal with protecting copyrighted materials.
Learn the difference and more. Software Activation is a technology that verifies a software product has been legitimately licensed for use. Learn how to do it effectively. Software IP protection strategy is not just about limiting access.
Best IP protection also aims to enhance customer experience. License server is an outdated legacy solution that is blocking software companies from scaling up.
However, the district court E. Judge Gilstrap sided with the accused infringer — holding that WPL presented unrebutted evidence that these elements were not protectable by copyright. On appeal, SAS raises four arguments:. I could see them losing in a decision with Newman dissenting.
Maybe I missed some though. What is it about this comment which you think readers of Patently-O would find offensive? Thanks for your report!
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