What is the meaning of Copyright 1999-2001? Does it mean that in 2005 that copyright is no longer applicable and it can freely used by anybody? I have seen this many sites at the bottom. Sometimes I need to use medical diagrams from other sites for my site on medical education. Though it is not for commercial purposes, I prefer to use those that are open source/ free. What about those that have expired copyright as above?
Wow Fryman, I was mistaken about this for so long and you cleared it so beautifully. Thank you. BTW, the page you quoted says this Learning from the master
Copyright follows the Mickey Mouse principal. Anytime the copyright on Mickey Mouse is within a few years of expiring, congress will get working on legislation that will extend the expiration period for copyrights.
Well in Germany for examply copyright is called Urheberrecht and the copyright for a song e.g. expires 30 years after the authors death if the creation date is unknown or if it is known after 50 years... unless it is still licenced by someone of course. There doesn't need to be a copyright notice anywhere though, the copyright is still there.
Copyright doesn't even need to be posted anymore (at least according to US Copyright Laws and those treatied with US), everything is automatically copyright to the owner at the time of creation. However, proper copyright notation for a website is: (c) 2005 Your Name or Company 2005 being the date the website was created/started. Using multiple years is really only necessary when revising a work, like a math book on it's 9th edition would have copyright years listed for all the previous editions plus whatever year it is currently.