At the start of each year, a vast amount of misinformation starts rolling about the “font of all wisdom” (aka “internet”) about copyrights. In particular, lots of folks change the copyright date on their websites.

Actually, that’s not-a-thing, and is just security theater.

Specifically, the US Copyright office does not accept website copyrights, (although some bits and pieces of a site can be copyrighted.)

“The Copyright Act does not explicitly recognize websites as a type of copyrightable subject matter. However, you may be able to register a website or a specific web page if it satisfies certain statutory requirements.”

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ66.pdf

Changing the copyright date just because the year rolls over is not only wrong, but self-defeating.

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

Be careful out there. You dont’ want to accidentally claim a copyright on someone else’s work .

Just sayin’…