Copyright symbol The copyright symbol, or copyright sign, designated
by © , is the symbol used in copyright notices for works other than sound recordings . The
use of the symbol is described in United States copyright law, and, internationally, by the
Universal Copyright Convention. The C stands for copyright.
History A copyright notice was first required in the
U.S. by the Copyright Act of 1802. It was lengthy: "Entered according to act of Congress,
in the year , by A. B., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington." In general, this notice had to appear on the copyrighted work itself, but
in the case of a "work of the fine arts", such as a painting, it could instead be inscribed
"on the face of the substance on which shall be mounted". The Copyright Act was amended
in 1874 to allow a much shortened notice: "Copyright, 18 , by A. B."
The copyright symbol © was introduced in the United States Copyright Act of 1909, section
18. The Copyright Act of 1909 was meant to be
a complete rewrite and overhaul of existing copyright law. As originally proposed in the
draft of the bill, copyright protection required putting the word "copyright" or a sanctioned
abbreviation on the work of art itself. This included paintings, the argument being that
the frame was detachable. In conference sessions among copyright stakeholders on the proposed
bill, conducted in 1905 and 1906, representatives of artist organizations objected to this requirement,
wishing to put no more on the work itself than the artist's name. As a compromise, the
possibility was created to add a relatively unintrusive mark, the capital letter C within
a circle, to appear on the work itself next to the artist's name, indicating the existence
of a more elaborate copyright notice elsewhere that was still to be allowed to be placed
on the mounting. Indeed, the version of the bill that was submitted to Congress in 1906,
compiled by the Copyright Commission under the direction of the Librarian of Congress,
Herbert Putnam, contained a provision that a special copyright symbol, the letter C inclosed
within a circle, could be used instead of the word "copyright" or the abbreviation "copr.",
but only for a limited category of copyrightable works, including works of art but not ordinary
books or periodicals. The formulation of the 1909 Act was left unchanged when it was incorporated
in 1946 as title 17 of the United States Code; when that title was amended in 1954, the symbol
© was allowed as an alternative to "Copyright" or "Copr." in all copyright notices.
Prior symbols indicating a work's copyright status are seen in Scottish almanacs of the
1670s; books included a printed copy of the local coat-of-arms to indicate their authenticity.
In countries party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
Works, including the modern-day U.S., a copyright notice is not required to be displayed in
order for copyright to be established; rather, the creation of the work automatically establishes
copyright. US copyright notice
In the United States, the copyright notice consists of:
the © symbol, or the word "Copyright" or abbreviation "Copr.";
the year of first publication of the copyrighted work; and
an identification of the owner of the copyright, either by name, abbreviation, or other designation
by which it is generally known. e.g.
© 2011 John Smith The notice was once required in order to receive
copyright protection in the United States, but in countries respecting the Berne convention
this is no longer the case. The United States joined the Berne Convention in 1989.
Digital representation Because the © symbol has long been unavailable
on typewriters and ASCII-based computer systems, it has been common to approximate this symbol
with the characters (C). The character is mapped in Unicode as U+00A9
© copyright sign (HTML: © ©). Unicode also has U+24B8 Ⓒ circled latin capital
letter c (HTML: Ⓒ) and U+24D2 ⓒ circled latin small letter c (HTML: ⓒ). They
are sometimes used as a substitute copyright symbol where the actual copyright symbol is
not available in the font or in the character set, for example, in some Korean code pages.
On Windows it may be entered by holding the Alt while typing the numbers 0 1 6 9 on the
numeric keypad. It can be entered on a Mac by holding the Option key and then pressing
the "g" key. On Linux, it can be obtained with the less than compose keygreater than
O C ComposeKey sequence. Related symbols
The sound recording copyright symbol is the symbol ℗ (the capital letter P enclosed
by a circle), and is used to designate copyright in a sound recording.
The copyleft symbol is a backwards capital letter C in a circle (copyright symbol © mirrored).
Because it is unavailable on Unicode, it can be approximated with character U+2184 ↄ
latin small letter reversed c between parentheses (ↄ) or, if supported by the application,
by combining it with the character U+20DD ⃝ combining enclosing circle ↄ⃝. It
has no legal meaning. The registered trademark symbol is the symbol
® (the capital letter R enclosed by a circle), and is used in some jurisdictions to designate
a trademark that has been registered in an official office of record (such as the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office in the United States).
The non-obligatory symbol used in a mask work protection notice is Ⓜ (capital letter M
enclosed in a circle).