How can a book's copyright year be in the future? I recently noticed that in the book &quot;Investing for Dummies&quot; by Eric Tyson, the copyright is listed for 2021, even if at the time of making this post the year is still 2020. How is this possible? How can a copyright year be in the future?
Copyright and Publishing information for the book
As I understand it, anything published after a certain date, possibly in September, gets the following year's date. It is merely a convention. I don't know if it started with publishing textbooks or not, but that would make a bit of sense. The academic year starts in September in many places.
The convention may only apply to certain kinds of books and only in certain places, but the practice is long standing.
Copyright is very long now, but back when it was shorter an extra year meant something. And publishing late in the year would, in essence, be giving up a year of protection.