Alright, I did use the Spotlight area position 'footer-1' instead for the menu. To turn off the copyright area I'd need to comment it out the following in the footer.php file?
<section class="t3-copyright">
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<div class="<?php echo $this->getParam('t3-rmvlogo', 1) ? 'span8' : 'span12' ?> copyright<?php $this->_c('footer')?>">
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="<?php $this->_p('footer') ?>" />
</div>
<?php if($this->getParam('t3-rmvlogo', 1)): ?>
<div class="span4 poweredby">
<a class="t3-logo t3-logo-light" href="http://t3-framework.org" title="Powered By T3 Framework" target="_blank">Powered by <strong>T3 Framework</strong></a>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
</div>
</section>
I tried unpublished the module as well as hiding the 'footer' in the template manager but the area (background) still shows with no comment. Only way I found to remove it was comment out that section of code above.