@SRLevine @inherentlee if you are in the United States (or any other country subject to the Berne convention, i assume, which is most of them, but i know less about other countries’ laws) you do not have to include a copyright footer at all, and what you put in it has no real legal weight. as far as the law is concerned, copyright exists from the moment of authorship, automatically, without need for notice or registration.

the purpose of the copyright notice is twofold:

• first, it informs people that the work is under copyright, so they cannot claim they thought it was under public domain when they infringed on it. this does not negate the infringement, but claiming ignorance might reduce the damages you would receive if you sued.

• second, it provides and maintains a record of when the work was first published and who its author was. for anonymous works, the date impacts when it enters public domain, but for works of singular, known, authorship, the length of copyright is based on the lifetime of the author and not publication date, so only the author really matters.

knowing who authored something and when it was published provides social benefit even when it offers no legal benefit, of course. having the copyright footer just always be the current year does not benefit anyone (we all already know what the current year is), so in that case i would just leave the year off. providing the range at least gives the years a website has been operative.

the preceding commentary is provided for informational/entertainment purposes only and is not intended as legal advice