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Mar 22, 2013 at 13:30 comment added Jirka Hanika The copyright exists automatically. It is enforceable under some copyright-related international treaties and not under others. It's your answer, not mine, I simply recommend you sticking to the valuable, on-topic part of it, and that's published source code only. We don't need to agree on the off topic part, which is unpublished source code. That's all from me.
Mar 22, 2013 at 13:19 comment added Eliah Kagan @JirkaHanika How is what I have said inaccurate? I've said that copyright exists automatically when a work is created. Are you now saying that it does not?
Mar 22, 2013 at 13:18 comment added Jirka Hanika Well, I respect your view, maybe I just don't trust myself, a non-lawyer and non-seer, in drafting proclamations that will help and not just confuse things in times of unforeseen and uncontrolled code releases. However, what you said is "It's good practice even for source code that is not intended to be released to anyone at all." and this I see as not only debatable, but also completely off topic to the question. The following parenthesis is arguably off topic for the whole site. Who cares about pre-1970's? And it's inaccurate as stated wrt Buenos Aires Convention anyway.
Mar 22, 2013 at 10:01 history edited Eliah Kagan CC BY-SA 3.0
clarified about what adding copyright notices is *not* for
Mar 22, 2013 at 9:59 comment added Eliah Kagan @JirkaHanika I'm not sure I agree about not including copyright notices--there are many circumstances that may arise rapidly where source code may need to be shown to someone. Also, if the code incorporates other code that requires a copyright notice (ideally such code should be in separate files but this is not always practical, and not always done when it is), it's good to include your own to cover the other code in the file, otherwise it looks like you're saying all the code in the file is copyright that other person/entity. You're right the copyright exists automatically, of course.
Mar 22, 2013 at 9:55 comment added Jirka Hanika +1, but also a comment. For unreleased code, copyright notices are usually quite counterproductive. The copyright exists automatically, without any notice, from the day the code was written or edited. Company names and years of creation of the work both evolve much more faster than developers eager to do the right thing realize. The will to continuously update all the notices soon wanes so all they accomplish over the years is distracting other developers. I guess that this answer would be improved if it was strictly focussed on released code only.
Mar 22, 2013 at 9:35 history answered Eliah Kagan CC BY-SA 3.0