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<span id="g_t_0040copying"></span><div class="header">
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<hr>
<span id="g_t_0040copying_003a-Declare-Copying-Permissions"></span><h4 class="subsection">3.3.1 <code>@copying</code>: Declare Copying Permissions</h4>
<span id="copying"></span><span id="index-copying"></span>
<p>The <code>@copying</code> command should be given very early in the document;
the recommended location is right after the header material
(see <a href="Texinfo-File-Header.html">Texinfo File Header</a>). It conventionally consists of a sentence
or two about what the program is, identification of the documentation
itself, the legal copyright line, and the copying permissions. Here is
a skeletal example:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">@copying
This manual is for <var>program</var> (version <var>version</var>, updated
<var>date</var>), which …
Copyright @copyright{} <var>years</var> <var>copyright-owner</var>.
@quotation
Permission is granted to …
@end quotation
@end copying
</pre></div>
<p>The <code>@quotation</code> has no legal significance; it’s there to improve
readability in some contexts.
</p>
<p>The text of <code>@copying</code> is output as a comment at the beginning
of Info, HTML, XML, and Docbook output files. It is <em>not</em> output
implicitly in plain text or TeX; it’s up to you to use
<code>@insertcopying</code> to emit the copying information. See the next
section for details.
</p>
<span id="index-copyright"></span>
<p>The <code>@copyright{}</code> command generates a ‘<samp>c</samp>’ inside a
circle when the output format supports this glyph (print and HTML
always do, for instance). When the glyph is not supported in the
output, it generates the three-character sequence ‘<samp>(C)</samp>’.
</p>
<p>The copyright notice itself has the following legally-prescribed
form:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">Copyright © <var>years</var> <var>copyright-owner</var>.
</pre></div>
<span id="index-Copyright-word_002c-always-in-English"></span>
<p>The word ‘Copyright’ must always be written in English, even if the
document is otherwise written in another language. This is due to
international law.
</p>
<span id="index-Years_002c-in-copyright-line"></span>
<p>The list of years should include all years in which a version was
completed (even if it was released in a subsequent year). It is
simplest for each year to be written out individually and in full,
separated by commas.
</p>
<span id="index-Copyright-holder-for-FSF-works"></span>
<span id="index-Holder-of-copyright-for-FSF-works"></span>
<span id="index-Owner-of-copyright-for-FSF-works"></span>
<p>The copyright owner (or owners) is whoever holds legal copyright on the
work. In the case of works assigned to the FSF, the owner is ‘Free
Software Foundation, Inc.’.
</p>
<p>The copyright ‘line’ may actually be split across multiple lines, both
in the source document and in the output. This often happens for
documents with a long history, having many different years of
publication. If you do use several lines, do not indent any of them
(or anything else in the <code>@copying</code> block) in the source file.
</p>
<p>See <a href="../maintain/Copyright-Notices.html#Copyright-Notices">Copyright Notices</a> in <cite>GNU Maintainer Information</cite>, for
additional information. See <a href="GNU-Sample-Texts.html">GNU Sample Texts</a>, for the full text to
be used in GNU manuals. See <a href="GNU-Free-Documentation-License.html">GNU Free Documentation License</a>, for
the license itself under which GNU and other free manuals are
distributed.
</p>
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Next: <a href="_0040insertcopying.html" accesskey="n" rel="next"><code>@insertcopying</code></a>, Up: <a href="Document-Permissions.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Document Permissions</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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