Copyright Information

Well, I don't know why my web site needs to be copyrighted, but it is anyway. I guess it's so that nobody copies it or something (duh?). And it's protected under some kind of law if I put a © on it. Besides, this is what I learned from my Entrepreneurship class back in college:

A copyright provides exclusive rights to creative individuals for the
protection of their literary or artistic production.

Any works created after January 1, 1978, and receiving a copyright are
protected for the life of the author plus 50 years.  The owner of the
copyright may:

1.  Reproduce the work
2.  Prepare derivative works based on it
3.  Distribute copies of the work by sale or otherwise
4.  Perform the work publicly
5.  Display the work publicly

Formal registration of a copyright with the Copyright Office of the
Library of Congress is a requirement before an author can begin a
lawsuit for infringment.

These are some guidelines for copyright protection from a lawyer's
point of view:

1.  There is absolutely no cost or risk involved in protecting material
    which you generate by copyright.  Therefore, as a matter of course,
    any writings that you prepare and spend a lot of time on (i.e.
    creating web pages) should be copyrighted by putting the copyright
    notice © on it.

2.  It is not necessary to register copyrights with the Copyright Office
    unless and until you want to sue somebody for infringement.
    Therefore, in the overwhelming majority of cases, assuming you are
    not in the publishing business, simply use the copyright notice
    (©) and do not bother spending the time and effort necessary to
    register copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office.

3.  In buying material and using it yourself, it is suggested that you
    take a commercial view of fair use.

4.  Be especially careful of catalogs and other similar materials which
    may have been compiled at some expense by other companies.  Many
    times, these catalogs will have so-called "trap lines," which are
    fictitious items of information designed to trap someone who was
    simply copying the information.

5.  There may be some slight advantage in copyrighting advertisements.
    In some situations, it might be desirable to include the copyright
    notice on any advertisement you prepare if it seems possible to you
    that a competitor may want to try to use it.

6.  There are some things which cannot be copyrighted, such as U.S.
    government publications, which are public domain.  Also, statutes,
    cases, congressional history, congressional debates, and all such
    things which are generated by government agencies generally cannot
    be copyrighted.

7.  Ideas cannot be copyrighted.



Source:

Kuratko, Donald F. and Richard M. Hodgetts.  1998.  Entrepreneurship:
    A Contemporary Approach.  Fourth Edition.  Forth Worth, TX:  The
    Dryden Press, Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Therefore, in a nutshell, the main point is that I put a © on my homepage, so that basically says that nobody can copy it. See, all of this information came from my Entrepreneurship book, so some college courses actually do come in handy, and we don't buy those expensive books for nothing! ;-)

Oh, by the way, this page (along with all of my other pages) is copyrighted. See? I'm putting a copyright notice on it right here: ©. And here's another one: ©. And one more for the road: ©. Heheh. :)