Re: Wrong year in notice

At 10:43 AM 10/19/95 -0400, pao[_at_]ascent.com (Patrick A. O'Donnell) wrote:
>
> The Berne Convention makes copyright notice unnecessary, but what
> happens these days if a publisher reprints a work and includes a
> notice that has the current year instead of the original year of
> publication? Does it matter if the original year of publication
> predates 1988?
>
> The specifics: some companies publish musical settings to liturgical
> texts on a three-year cycle. I recently noticed in one book that the
> copyright notice on each week's setting listed the current year,
> despite the fact that the music (both melody and arrangment) is
> identical to the music from three (and six) years ago (or only
> marginally modified). I don't have the books from nine years ago --
> that's before I became involved in our choir.
>
> So, my question is, is this publisher causing itself trouble, or
> merely being unethical?

See http://www.patents.com/copyrigh.htm#notice, where this subject is addressed. The answer is, placing an incorrect year in the notice has sometimes resulted in loss of copyright rights.

---
Carl Oppedahl, oppedahl[_at_]patents.com  Oppedahl & Larson, patent law firm
http://www.patents.com/ is a web server with frequently asked questions 
  and answers on patent law and other intellectual property subjects