Re: Finish updating copyright years

[merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz)]

>>>>> "Piet" == Piet van Oostrum <piet@cs.uu.nl> writes:

RLS> Just to make sure this is legal... the copyright year *cannot* change
RLS> unless something has changed (besides the copyright notice).

Piet> Legal in what sense? Are there laws describing what you can put in a
Piet> copyright notice?

The way it was explained to me is that you can't take something that
says:

        Copyright (c) 1994, Randal L. Schwartz

and re-release it in 2005 as:

        Copyright (c) 1994, 2005 Randal L. Schwartz

without any new creative content, because that would be artificially
extending the date of original publication, and that's not legal.

However, if you introduce new creative content, the *new* content is
copyright during the new release year, although the *old* content
still must be released with the old dates.  That's why updated
material ends up with multiple dates.

So, legal in the sense that it reflects the actual copyright protections.

Reading the file that was pointed out to me (in emacs/admin/notes), if
you have a lawyer that's willing to ignore the tradition here to cover
you when you go to court, I'm perfectly fine to stop suggesting what I
know to be true.  So I'll go back to my corner.  Just hope you don't
end up in court. :)

-- 
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