What relevance does the stated year have in online copyright claims? I've noticed that many websites will use a bit of JavaScript to keep the declared copyright year at the bottom of the page up to date. For example: new Date().getFullYear() (which simply reports the current year, no matter when the content was actually last updated). Does this practice actually accomplish anything other than make the site appear to be more recently/frequently updated?
Almost none. It is a legacy of the era when copyright protection was a function of year of publication. Including it is appropriate, however, to meet the formal requirements for a legal notice of claim of copyright which has some procedural implications if it is omitted.
Copyright exists whether they make that statement or not. Giving such notice informs the public that the work is copyrighted, who owns it, and when it was published. If the work is infringed, the defendant will not be able to use an innocent infringement defense. There's nothing special about using the domain name, as it's probably the name or DBA of the business that owns the domain.
Yes Of course, the period is not actually &quot;indefinite&quot; - it has a definite end: the date of your death. It also has another (unstated) endpoint: the point at which the information ceases to be confidential other than through your breach: for example if published in a patent application. The correct legal term here is not &quot;indefinite&quot;; its &quot;forever&quot; or &quot;perpetually&quot;. I prefer forever because perpetually technically means &quot;all the time&quot; rather than &quot;neverending&quot;. However, documents commonly use “indefinite” when they mean “forever” so there is unlikely to be grounds to dispute the interpretation. Under US law there is no prohibition on perpetuities as there is in most common law jurisdictions (80 years is typical) so this contract is totally legit. As for the law preventing &quot;morally bankrupt practices and intellectual enslavement&quot;; it does: you don't have to enter this contract if you don't want to.
I'm wondering whos responsible for this code if people start using it? The user. Can the people using it that think its under GPL in any way get in trouble for it or be made to remove it from their projects? Yes, they can be sued (successfully) for copyright violation. It’s not enough that you think you have permission from the copyright holder - you actually have to have permission. The law places the onus on the copier to seek out and get permission from the copyright holder. In theory, someone deceived in this way could sue the repo poster(s) for misrepresentation, however, there are practical issues about finding them, having them in an accessible jurisdiction and if they are judgement proof. Copyright law was created to protect physical books and paintings - it doesn’t really fit with digital methods of reproduction but it is the law. It doesn’t matter that complying with it can be hard bordering on impossible - comply with it you must.
No, it's still copyright infringement. When you modify a copyrighted work in any way, you generate a derivative work which you are not allowed to distribute without the permission of the original copyright holder.
The author, or the copyright holder if the author has sold or assigned the copyright, may register a copyright at any time, even many years after the work was copyrighted. However, for all modern works (since 1978 in the US) the work has copyright protection as soon as it is created and set down in a tangible form (such as on paper or in a computer file), whether it is registered or not. Registration cannot gain or lose copyright protection. It is evidence of the copyright, and it provides some additional rights if an infringement suit should occur. If there are multiple co-authors, one author should ideally register on behalf of all of them, listing all co-authors, but multiple registrations will do no major harm. No one who is not an author or copyright holder of a work (or a valid authorized agent of the author or copyright holder) may legitimately register a copyright in that work. Registration procedures and the exact benefits of registration vary by country. In fact, some countries do not have any copyright registration. Edit: In the US, registration procedures are described in Circular #2 from the Copyright Office. Falsely registering a copyright is a crime under 17 U.S.C. § 506(e), and could be reported to law enforcement. See also Wikipedia's article on "Copyfraud". If a false registration has been made, the true author can file a conflicting registration. This should be sufficient to allow a copyright infringement case to be filed. It would be very wise to consult a lawyer with experience in copyright infringement issues before taking steps in the matter. Second Edit: It is one of the elements of an infringement claim that the plaintiff owns the copyright, or has been authorized by one who does. often this is not disputed, and is passed by with no significant time or effort. But if a false copyright registration has been made, in which a person who was not the author claims to be the author, then evidence clearly establishing the actual authorship will probably be needed if the case goes to court. A registration establishes a rebuttable presumption that the person who registered the copyright owns it, and this presumption would need to be overcome.
You are correct that facts in general are not protected by copyright, and most raw data are facts. However, a collection of data may be protected by copyright as to its selection and organization. A use which copies such selection might possibly be copyright infringement. If data constitutes a trade secret it may be protected as such, and &quot;improper&quot; access might be unlawful. This would not apply to publicly available data or collections of data. If, to access a data set, one must sign or agree to a contract, that contract may limit the use of such data. Again, this would not apply to most publicly available data.
Here's where you went wrong legally: Suppose I legally obtain some digital image created by somebody else (e.g., by downloading from a public website). That, right there, is copyright infringement- unless the copyright owner has granted permission or the image is public domain you cannot copy it - this breaches "the right to make reproductions". By posting it on the web (assuming that it isn't itself an infringing copy) they have given implied permission for you to look at it in a web browser but not to copy it into a presentation even if that presentation is never presented. If it is presented then that makes the infringement worse - it adds breaches of "the right to communicate to the public" and "the right to use the work as a basis for an audiovisual work". How is this different from the computer wallpaper? It isn't. If you are using the one of the defaults that shipped with the OS then the license gives you permission. If you are using someone else's copyright without permission then it's a breach. There are defenses to copyright infringement but these are quite nationally variable - search this or other sites for "fair dealing" and "fair use".