Copyright dates – single year or range?

The Australian Copyright Council recommends the following formulation for claiming copyright in written documents: © (or “Copyright”) + copyright owner’s name + year of first publication. For example: © Magnum IP Legal Services 2008.

Once in a while you might see what looks like a date range instead of a single year of first publication, such as: © Magnum IP Legal Services 2006-2008. This is appropriate for “documents” such as web pages or software programs which are constantly being revised and updated incrementally. The “start” year should be the date of the oldest content still contained in the work, with the “end” year being the last year that the work was revised.