posted Monday 22 of August 2011 by Zoe [copyrights]

A proper copyright notice indicates that the work is protected by copyright. However, the term of copyright protection may have expired, or it may be invalid for some other reason.

Nevertheless, even when a work does not contain a copyright notice, it may still be protected. This is particularly true if the work was created after the Berne Convention was implemented, in 1989. In this case, no copyright notice is required. However, if the work was created prior to the Berne Convention's implementation, it is more difficult to determine if copyright protection exists. This is because having no copyright notice usually, but not necessarily, means that the work is not protected. Under the old law, limited distribution of a work without notice did not extinguish copyright protection if sufficient efforts were made to correct the error on later copies.

If the copyright is registered, information about the work can be obtained for a fee from the U.S. Copyright Office. See Appendix B. One may even chose to have a search performed in the Copyright Office. However, the results will be inconclusive due to the fact that registration is not required for copyright protection to exist. In sum, it is usually difficult to determine with a high degree of certainty that a work is copyright protected without contacting the author or the copyright owner.

If a work is copied in reliance on the fact that an authorized copy does not have a copyright notice on it, then as an innocent infringer, the copier will not be liable for statutory or actual damages for the period of time before he received notice from the copyright owner that the work is protected by copyright. However, the innocent infringer must show that he was misled by the missing copyright notice. A court may, if it chooses, award the copyright owner the profits which the copier realized during the period of innocent infringement. Alternatively, the court may forbid further unauthorized copying, or may require the payment of a reasonable license fee.

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