Did you know that everyone is a copyright owner? Once you’ve created your original work and fixed it in a tangible medium – like a photograph, a song, or a blog – you are automatically granted copyright!
However, today enforcing copyright is not so easy. That’s when copyright notices come in handy.
In this guide, we explain what copyright is, why it’s so important, and show you copyright examples that you can replicate on your website.
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects the author of an original work once it’s fixed in a tangible medium. Many different types of works can be copyrighted: photographs, books, illustrations, songs, music compositions, computer programs, movies, blog posts, etc.
Once copyright is granted, owners have the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, and display their work. However, there are times when copyrighted works can be used freely. For example, copyright law in the United States recognizes fair use for news reporting, teaching, research, and more.
Copyright is recognized internationally under the Berne Convention, but copyright laws are territorial and enforcement varies from country to country. So if your work is used (or infringed) in the U.S., you’ll have U.S. copyright, if it’s used in Italy, you’ll have Italian copyright, and so on.
Generally, copyrights last for the author’s life plus 70 years after the author’s death.
Even though copyright is granted automatically, sometimes it’s useful to add a copyright notice to your website.
It’s a simple notice stating your name, the date, and a statement of rights. Its purpose is to inform people that the original content you’ve created belongs to you because you are the author.
A copyright notice should include at least the following elements:
Here’s how they come together in a copyright example:
© 2025 John Doe. All Rights Reserved.
No, it’s not required by law to have a copyright notice. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which is ratified by 181 countries, grants copyright upon the creation of an original work.
However, a notice clearly signals that you own the work, making it harder for others to claim that they didn’t know it was copyrighted and discouraging unauthorized use.
While a copyright notice is not required by law, certain copyright laws encourage the registration of copyright to enforce the exclusive rights of copyright through litigation. Registration is not mandatory but can grant additional protection. You can learn more here.
A perfect copyright example is the one you can find on Apple’s website. As you can see, Apple combines all the elements we listed above in a simple notice.
Amazon uses the same approach – a simple copyright notice in the footer – but avoids the “All Rights Reserved” statement.
“All Rights Reserved” is a typical statement of copyright. It means that the author of the work reserves for himself all the rights to use, reproduce and distribute the work he created. Any unauthorized use is a copyright infringement.
Even though this is by far the most common copyright statement, you can also find some variants.
The most common place to add a copyright notice is a website’s footer. In this way, it is always visible and accessible.
You can also add a statement of copyright on a specific page on your website or app. For example, Netflix has a page called “Legal Notices” where there is a clear statement of copyright and a link to submit copyright infringements.
Finally, you can include your copyright disclosures in a Terms and Conditions document, which will help you protect your content in a legally binding way.
If you’re just looking for a way to write your copyright statement, then the information contained in this guide is enough. Remember to include all the elements we provided above.
Instead, if you want to create a proper Terms and Conditions document with copyright disclosures, we can help you with that!
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