Copyright Years

Are the years correct for the Castle copyright in RISC OS?

The startup banner shows: © 2012 Castle Technology Ltd
The info window of the task manager shows: © Castle Technology Ltd, 2002

Should both of these show 2012?

Castle’s copyright applies from 2002 when the Iyonix came out (though 2003 is arguably more correct since that’s when the transaction to purchase RISC OS completed) until at least 2072.

Personally, I think the startup banner should say 2002 also, but in the fast paced world of computing people get a bit sniffy at 10 year old dates so that just reads it from *FX0.

Windows is copyright 1985 but only gets a quiet mention now.

The oddity is when people do ©1985-2001, as though they’re surrendering their rights after only 16 years.

Cheers Sprow, do you think that both the startup banner and the task manager should show the same year? Or would this be something that Castle would need to answer?

When people say © 1985-2001 what it means is that the first version of the work came out in 1985, but that revisions significant enough to generate further intellectual property continued to come out until 2001, meaning that the copyright in the 2001 verison will persist for 70 years after the death of the last person involved in the 2001 version.

On RISC OS 5.16 the Info from the Task Manager gave the copyright years as 2002-10.

Arguably the first date has nothing to do with when Castle acquired the rights: it is the date when the product first came out, which is 2002.

If I was a publisher of a book, which came out in 2002, and sold my rights in the book to another publisher several years later, that publisher might still put 2002 as the copyright date, if nothing about the book had changed since the original edition.

Given that substantial changes have been made to the operating system, the final copyright year should probably be 2012 in both cases, so it ought to read 2002-2012, or just 2012. The earlier date is less important legally, as the compilation has been produced in 2012, and that’s the year that matters and from which the copyright dates. The earlier year just indicates that some aspects may not have changed since the first version of RISC OS 5.

Should both of these show 2012?

It sounds like it, especially from Matthew’s detailed explanation.