Copperheads are generally more brown or light brown in color. They are normally smaller also at least the ones I always saw.
My mother was bit on the foot by a coperhead when I was a kid. She didn't see it and stepped on its tail. Since then, snakes were not allowed near the house on pain of death.
Where I grew up, I never once saw a live rattler. We saw many copperheads, mocassins, bullsnakes, garter snakes, chicken snakes and others, but never a liver rattler. I did see rattlers that others had killed, I just never came across one. Since we didn't run around the woods after dark much, I think that is the main reason.