A friend of mine made and copyrighted a website in early 2010 and on the base of each page is the copyright symbol together with the words " copyright 2010" he has told me that the copyright on web material lasts for 50 years but somebody has said that the wording on the base of the pages should be updated every year to suit the year we are in so it should now read 2011, can anyone tell me if this is correct?
Actually you do't even have to mark it at all. Copyright is intrinsic, if you created it, you own it...although its really hard to control as bringing legal control to bear on internet copyright thieves is expensive and difficult.
As Woofgang says, copyright in any original work is acquired automatically by the person who creates that work (or by his employer if that work was created in the course of his employment). There's no need to put a copyright symbol or date upon the work.