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For what it's worth, we are aware that "Copyright $YEAR $NAME" is
sufficient notice of copyright on software under US law and
Internationally, and saying Copyright (c) $YEAR $NAME is a bit nutty.
The character sequence (c) has never been ruled to have the same force
in US law as the actual copyright symbol, and that neither of these
US-specific symbols adds anything of value beyond saying "Copyright"
since the Berne convention took effect in the US back in 1989.
Similarly, saying "all rights reserved" doesn't do anything magical
unless your software goes in a time-warp back to when the Buenos Aires
Convention was the general rule. (And what will they run it on back
then?) And what would even lead you to say "All Rights Reserved" when
you're explicitly granting most of those rights to anybody receiving
the work in accordance with the 3-clause BSD license?
But still the FOSS community retains these ritual notations out of a
kind of cargo-cult lawyering. Who knows? Perhaps one day, if we
write our copyright notices ineptly enough, John Frum will come and
give us a DFSG-compatible license that everybody can get behind.
(Also, I am not a lawyer. The above should not be taken as legal
advice. -- Nick)
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