copyright intellectual-property authorship
Which year to put in copyright notice when mixing old content?
<p>I'm from India and I know that copyright rules may vary from country to country, however, I hope that this question is much general and could be answered based on a general convention.</p>

<p>I'm writing a book and it'll be published this year. It is published by a publisher (i.e., not self-published). But I plan to hold the copyright myself, and include this notice in the title verso page:</p>

<p>Copyright (C) 2017 Nandakumar Edamana</p>

<p>The book may contain pictures from Wikimedia Commons or the public domain, for which I'll include separate notices. However, it also includes some content from my other works and articles published earlier. So how should be my copyright notice?</p>

<p>Copyright (C) 2017 Nandakumar Edamana
Some contents are from third-party sources or from the author's earlier works. See Page ? to know more about their copyright.</p>

<p>Copyright (C) 2014-2017 Nandakumar Edamana
Some contents are from third-party sources and their copyright details are included in the pages they appear.</p>

<p>Or doesn't that matter at all because if the copyright is held by the author, its duration is calculated based on his lifetime?</p>

<p><strong>Update:</strong>
It is primarily a technical work, not a literary one.</p>

<p><strong>Notice is optional</strong></p>

<p>Copyright notice is not required, rather it is a warning to the public that a work is indeed protected and (more importantly) by whom, so you can determine if the author is dead. The US law spelling out duration of copyright, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302" rel="nofollow noreferrer">17 USC 302</a> says that</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from
  its <em>creation</em> and, except as provided by the following subsections,
  endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years
  after the author’s death</p>
</blockquote>

<p>but then</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>In the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made
  for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year
  of its first <em>publication</em>, or a term of 120 years from the year of
  its <em>creation</em>, whichever expires first</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The point is that creation and publication are distinct, and the law recognizes this: copyright starts from <em>creation</em>, not publication.</p>

<p>Since copyright duration is expressed in terms of a fixed period after the author's death, it does not matter exactly when a sub-part of a work was created, and giving a year is tradition but legally superficial. Except, of course, in a work for hire, where the author (the company) does not "die", and that is when the date becomes important.</p>

<p><strong>The law of notices</strong></p>

<p>There is also law pertaining to notices: <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/401" rel="nofollow noreferrer">17 USC 401</a>, which says</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>a notice of copyright as provided by this section <em>may</em> be placed on
  publicly distributed copies</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If you do decide to include a notice, then </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>If a notice appears on the copies, it <em>shall</em> consist of the following
  three elements</p>
</blockquote>

<p>one of which is</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>the year of <em>first publication</em> of the work; or in the case of
  compilations, or derivative works incorporating previously published
  material, the year date of first publication of the compilation or
  derivative work is sufficient.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The notice does not define the duration of copyright, rather, if related to subsection (d) which says</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>If a notice of copyright in the form and position specified by this
  section appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant
  in a copyright infringement suit had access, then <em>no weight shall be
  given to such a defendant’s interposition of a defense based on
  innocent infringement</em> in mitigation of actual or statutory damages,
  except as provided in the last sentence of section 504(c)(2)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Basically, the copyright notice precludes an innocent infringement defense. So, following US law, the date of copyright to be included in the notice is the date of its first publication. The duration of copyright is determined separately.</p>

<p>The point of copyright notice is to state who the copyright belongs to, and from when. The overall work has its date based on author lifetime, but this may be different for parts of the work, and it is misleading to state the wrong dates or holders for part of the work, especially if they are licensed or are public domain.</p>

<p>Your best option is to list the dates and copyright holders of all material either individually or as a range (like in your example; reprints of some books I own have a list of dates of each edition, and specify one as "First printed in ...") and then note licensed content in place where necessary (i.e. where they differ from the copyright holder of the overall work).</p>
