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Prashanth Menon wrote:
> 1. What is the common practice while writing copyright notices? I have
> seen most notices use a standard syntax such as this: (c) 2007
> <company name> All rights reserved.
The only thing wrong is that the (c) must be replaced with the
c-in-circle copyright symbol if it is to have any meaning. The word
"copyright" is also effective. If someone insists on using (c) then it's
probably a good idea to add the word copyright. The phrase "all rights
reserved" (and its translations into several other languages) used to
have additional good effect, but I believe that Berne has made it
unnecessary.
The Berne Convention applies. The copyright notice aids in establishing
that you really do claim ownership and that you did intend that the work
be considered copyrighted by you in the year stated.
I have no idea how I would defend my web-published material, labeled,
"Copyright Peter Neilson, 2004," against someone who stole my work and
produced a web page that contained the phrase "Copyright Ferdinand
Unrecht 1997." Unless we both had our material on computer systems with
full audit trails, it could be difficult to judge who was owner and who
was thief.
I do not know the status of work for hire, except that one's terms of
contract or employment often cover the ownership or assignment of works
produced.
> 3. What are the implications of warranting the documentation?
A warrantee could set you up for a lawsuit, I suppose.
> 4. Is it necessary to include the trademarks of ALL other companies
> whose products are used in the current document? Which means this list
> changes with the product and its document?
A company owning a trademark must be able to show that it has taken
effort to defend and preserve the trademark. Part of doing that is for a
company's lawyer to write nasty notes to companies or individuals who
use the trademark in print (or on the internet) without mentioning the
trademark's owner. One avoids those threatening letters, and shows that
one's own trademarks deserve similar respect, by mentioning at least
once in a publication the trademark status of of trademarks used. It is
possible to be sued for improper use of a trademark. Google for
trademark lawsuit (no quotes) for plenty of fodder.
It's an interesting question, whether a trademark that appears on
several related web pages needs its ownership identified on all of them,
or only the "first" time it appears. If the former, then if I link to
your web page on which you later improperly use IBM's trademark, am I
remiss for not having mentioned IBM's trademark ownership on MY web
page? Do I perhaps need to mention on every silly web page that might
link elsewhere, "All the following trademarks are owned by their
respective owners [semi-infinite list follows]," or at least, "I am not
responsible for anything that appears on a web page that isn't mine."
Some of us already have that, with those corporate warning notices at
the bottom of our e-mail, often in two or more languages, which become a
permanent part of the TECHWR-L archives, for the delight of
techno-archeologists three hundred years from now.
Additionally, most "active" web pages are constructed on the fly from
user input. If I Google for a trademark, have I or Google misused that
trademark? What if the trademark is something like Apple (a common noun)
rather than Kodak (a made-up proper name)? Google's searches are not
(normally) case sensitive. Oh, and is a web page that I construct and
view by simply using Google's search copyrighted? By whom, me or Google?
Or by the owners of the unattributed trademarks that appear on it?
I am not a lawyer. All my opinions here are merely the blatherings of a
tech writer who probably should have stuck to tech writing this morning,
instead of sticking his neck out. YMMV. (YMMV is a TM of YMMV
Corporation, Albwqwerqwe, Antarctica.)
All rights reserved. All lefts reversed. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Todos
los derechos reservados. Todos los izquierdos reversados. Tous droits
reserves. Sumimasen, nihongo-wa wakarimasen.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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