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If a company has a load of client-facing documents (not web pages, think PDFs and various digital handouts) and there are copyright notices on the document pages, does the business need to update the year of copyright in the notice every year?

From what I can tell by reading around online, the year of creation is the important date to include in UK produced content.

These documents are not undergoing any significant changes. Once created, the odd typo is picked up and edited. But does the notice year need to change every year?

(It would also be appreciated if anyone knew of any places regarding UK law on this I can look at, especially if it's the kind one might point a colleague at.)

kirby1900
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5 Answers5

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You don't "need" a copyright notice at all, therefore you also don't need to update one. You may choose to have a copyright notice and there might be (non-legal) benefits of doing so, but there's no legal requirement for having one. If you want something you can show your colleagues, here's some gov.uk guidance:

Copyright is an automatic right and there are no official formalities to acquire copyright protection.

JBentley
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Most countries' copyright legislation, including that of the UK, comes from the Berne Convention. Generally:

  • copyright is 'automatically' given to the author (where the author may be your employer)
  • no notices are required whatsoever
  • obligations lie with those people who do not hold the copyright over a work, not with the copyright holder

With that in mind, copyright notices are usually added to emphasize the fact that something is indeed protected, and to communicate to the reader who holds the copyright (helpful if you want people to be able to contact you for licensing requests).

Xano
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The accepted answer is correct, however there is another point worth considering:

Since the year of creation has not changed then you do not get any new copyright. You cannot just claim to extend your copyright by another year by changing the date on it. Correcting minor typos is also unlikely to be considered significant enough to be grounds for new copyright on the content (edit: although may grant separate copyright on the typesetting, see comments).

This means that changing the date on all documents to the current year is actually misleading. By putting a deliberately misleading statement about copyright, you risk people making arguments like "I knew that statement wasn't true, so I ignored it and assumed copyright had expired". I'm not saying those arguments will hold up in court, but you shouldn't expose yourself unnecessarily.

Tom V
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No.

As noted in a comment by phoog, "a copyright notice of a specified form, including the year, was necessary under US law" decades ago. Under Us legislation, 17 USC 401 defines these notices as “Copyright”, "year of first publication of the work", "the name of the owner of copyright in the work". They are no longer required even in the US, though.

Nowadays, you don't need to the copyright notice, and that includes the UK. Thus, updating the year is not necessary, as you get the same copyright protection without it.

Moreover, changing the year does not give you a longer copyright protection. A change merely modifying the copyright year would not confer new copyright (unlike a substantial change to the pdf, where there would be new copyright on top of the older one).

It might even make it look as if the "updated" documents were newer than they really are (e.g. business B copied a document from business A, since business A changed, it looks like A copied B, instead of B copying A).

I find the "updating of copyright years" somewhat silly, showing a lack of understanding of copyright. Still, there are companies that have such a policy. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Ángel
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The UK (as I recall) gives copyright for at least 100 years. TRIPS gives copyright for at least 50 years. The Berne Convention gives copyright for at least 50 years when the author(s) cannot be determined.

In practice, companies often do not document authorship, and claim copyright under the fixed-term provision of the national copyright laws.

I think that it is unlikely that your "client facing documents" will have any value in 50 or 100 years, so perhaps it is not "necessary" to update the copyright statement when substantial changes are made. And perhaps your company has other means of documenting the first publication date.

I certainly think that it is helpful, both to the company and to the clients, to give a date of first publication, and that may still be required in some jurisdictions. As was, and is, the date of birth of the Author, which in some places was the date of authorial copyright.

david
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