View source for Copyright symbol

{{Short description|Symbol used in some copyright notices}}
{{about|the legal symbol ©}}
{{redirect|©|Ⓒ and ⓒ|Enclosed C||Circle-c (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox symbol
|mark=©
|name = Copyright sign
|unicode = {{unichar|00A9|Copyright sign|html=}}
|see also= {{unichar|2117|Sound recording copyright|nlink=Sound recording copyright symbol|html=}}<br />{{Unichar|1F12F|COPYLEFT SYMBOL | html= | nlink=Copyleft}} ([[File:Unicode 1xF12F.svg|20px]])
|different from = {{unichar|24B8|Circled latin capital letter C|html= | nlink=Enclosed Alphanumerics}}
}}
The '''copyright symbol''', or '''copyright sign''', '''{{char|©}}''' (a circled capital letter [[C]] for [[copyright]]), is the [[symbol]] used in [[copyright notice]]s for works other than sound recordings.<ref name=notice>[[17 U.S.C.]] {{UnitedStatesCodeSec|17|401}}</ref>  The use of the symbol is described by the [[Universal Copyright Convention]].<ref>[[s:Universal Copyright Convention#Article III|Universal Copyright Convention, Article III, §1]]. (Paris text, July 24, 1971.)</ref> The symbol is widely recognized but, under the [[Berne Convention]], is no longer required in most nations to assert a new copyright.

==US law==
In the United States, the [[Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988]], effective March 1, 1989, removed the requirement for the copyright symbol from [[U.S. copyright law]], but its presence or absence is legally significant on works published before that date, and it continues to affect remedies available to a copyright holder whose work is infringed.

===History===
Prior symbols indicating a work's copyright status are seen in Scottish [[almanac]]s of the 1670s; books included a printed copy of the local [[coat-of-arms]] to indicate their authenticity.<ref>{{cite book |title=Privilege and property: essays on the history of copyright |year=2010 |publisher=[[Open Book Publishers]]|isbn=978-1-906924-18-8 |last1=Mann |first1=Alastair J. |chapter=A Mongrel of Early Modern Copyright |editor-last2=Kretschmer |editor-first2=Martin |editor-last3=Bently |editor-first3=Lionel |editor-last1=Deazley |editor-first1=Ronan |url=https://www.openbookpublishers.com/reader/26#page/75/mode/1up |page=62}}</ref>

A copyright notice was first required in the U.S. by the Copyright Act of 1802.<ref>{{cite web|title=Copyright Law Revision Study Number 7, page 6|url=http://www.copyright.gov/history/studies/study7.pdf|work=United States Copyright Office|publisher=United States Government Printing Office|access-date=14 June 2013}}</ref> It was lengthy: "Entered according to [[act of Congress]], in the year <u>{{quad}}{{quad}}</u>, by A.&nbsp;B., in the office of the [[Librarian of Congress]], at [[Washington, D.C.|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 [the work of art] shall be mounted".<ref>Copyright Act of 1870, §97.</ref> The Copyright Act was amended in 1874 to allow a much shortened notice: "Copyright, 18<u>{{quad}}{{quad}}</u>, by A.&nbsp;B."<ref>1874 Amendment to the Copyright Act of 1870, §1.</ref>

The copyright symbol {{char|©}} was introduced in the United States in section 18 of the [[Copyright Act of 1909]],<ref name="wikisource">[[:s:Copyright Act of 1909#Sec. 18.|Copyright Act of 1909, §18]]</ref> and initially applied only to pictorial, graphic and sculptural works.<ref name=study7>{{Cite book|title = Copyright Law Revision: Study 7: Notice of Copyright|publisher = United States Government Printing Office|year = 1960|location = Washington, D.C.|page = 11 |url = http://www.copyright.gov/history/studies/study7.pdf}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |title=Arguments before the Committees on Patents of the Senate and House of Representatives, conjointly, on the bills S. 6330 and H.R. 19853, to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright. June 6–9, 1906 |publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office|Government Printing Office]] |year=1906 |page=68 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZlA-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA68}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Proposed Copyright Legislation |journal=[[The Writer]] |volume=XVIII |number=6 |date=June 1906 |page=87 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fEhppVLGxR0C&q=%22proposed+copyright+legislation%22&pg=PA87}}</ref>

The formulation of the 1909 Act was left unchanged when it was incorporated in 1946 as title 17 of the [[United States Code]].

A 1954 amendment to the law extended the use of the symbol to any published copyrighted work: the symbol was allowed as an alternative to "Copyright" or "Copr." in all copyright notices.<ref name=study7/><ref name=1954amendment>''An Act to amend title 17, United States Code, entitled "Copyrights"'', {{USStatute|83|743|68|1030|1954|08|31}}.</ref>

=== US copyright notice ===
{{main|Copyright notice}}
In the [[United States]], the copyright notice consists of:<ref>{{uscsub|17|401|b}}</ref>
* "©" or the word "Copyright" or abbreviation "Copr.";
* the year of first publication of the copyrighted work; and
* identification of the owner of the copyright, either by name, abbreviation, or other designation by which they are generally known.
For example, for a work first published in 2011: {{char|© 2011 John Doe}}<!-- Please do not "update" to the current year; that implies the current year, rather than the year of the first pub, should be used. An arbitrary year is better here -->

The notice was once required in order to receive copyright protection in the United States, but in countries respecting the [[Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works|Berne Convention]] this is no longer the case.<ref name="NYT1988" /> The United States joined the Berne Convention effective March 1, 1989.<ref>{{cite book |title=Circular 38A: International Copyright Relations of the United States |year=2014 |publisher=U.S. Copyright Office |url=http://copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf |page=2 |access-date=March 5, 2015}}</ref>

==Berne Convention==
In countries party to the [[Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works]], including the United States, 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.<ref name="NYT1988">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/21/arts/senate-approves-joining-copyright-convention.html | title=Senate Approves Joining Copyright Convention | first=Irvin | last=Molotsky | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=October 21, 1988 | access-date=September 22, 2011}}</ref> The United States was one of the later accedents to Berne, implementing its adherence to the treaty with the [[Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988]], which became effective March 1, 1989,<ref>{{cite news |title=United States Joins The Berne Copyright Convention |url=https://www.gesmer.com/news/united-states-joins-the-berne-copyright-convention |access-date=February 28, 2019 |work=Insights Publications |date=January 1989 |archive-date=December 4, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204202451/https://www.gesmer.com/news/united-states-joins-the-berne-copyright-convention |url-status=dead }}</ref> making the notice optional. However, the copyright notice remains material in one instance: a copyright infringer cannot claim innocent infringement as a partial defense to mitigate its damages where the infringer had access to a copy of the work that bore a copyright notice.<ref>{{uscsub|17|401|d}} (''Evidentiary weight of notice'')</ref>

The [[List of parties to international copyright agreements|majority of nations now belong to Berne]], and thus do not require copyright notices to obtain copyright.

== Digital representation ==
The character is mapped in [[Unicode]] as {{unichar|00A9|COPYRIGHT SIGN}}.<ref>{{cite web |title=C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement {{!}} Range: 0080–00FF  |url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf |publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]] |date=2021}}</ref> Unicode also has {{unichar|24b8|CIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C|nlink=Enclosed C}} and {{unichar|24D2|CIRCLED LATIN SMALL LETTER C|nlink=Enclosed C}},<ref>{{cite web |title=Enclosed Alphanumerics {{!}} Range: 2460–24FF |url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2460.pdf |publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]] |date=2021}}</ref> which have an appearance similar to the character.

=== Typing the character ===
Because the © symbol is not available on typical [[typewriter]]s or in [[ASCII]], it has long been common to approximate this symbol with the characters {{char|(c)}} (c in parentheses), a practice that has been accepted by the [[U.S. Copyright Office]] under both the [[Copyright Act of 1909|1909]]<ref>U.S. Copyright Office, [http://copyright.gov/history/comp/compendium-one.pdf ''Compendium of Copyright Office Practices'', first ed.] (1967, rev. July 1, 1973), § 4.2.2</ref> and [[Copyright Act of 1976|1976]]<ref>U.S. Copyright Office, [http://copyright.gov/history/comp/compendium-two.pdf ''Compendium of Copyright Office Practices'', second ed.] (1978, rev. 1984), § 1005.01(c)</ref><ref>U.S. Copyright Office, [https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/ ''Compendium of Copyright Office Practices'', third ed.] (2014, rev. September 29, 2017), § 2204.4(A)</ref> U.S. Copyright Acts. [[Word processor|Word processing software]] with an [[autocorrection]] facility can recognise this three-character sequence and convert it automatically to a single copyright symbol.

==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.<ref>{{citation |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4WKTNLRtUAsC&pg=PA356 |title=The Public Domain |author=Stephen Fishman |chapter=The Copyright Symbol |page=356 |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4133-1205-8}}</ref>
* The [[copyleft]] symbol {{char|🄯}} is a backwards capital letter C in a circle (copyright symbol © mirrored). It has no legal meaning.<ref>{{cite book|first=G. Brent|last=Hall|year=2008|publisher=Springer|title=Open Source Approaches in Spatial Data Handling|url=https://archive.org/details/opensourceapproa00hall_370|url-access=limited|page=[https://archive.org/details/opensourceapproa00hall_370/page/n41 29]|isbn=978-3-540-74830-4}} Additional {{ISBN|978-3-540-74830-4}}.  See {{Google books|JZNuu8XODQMC|Open Source Approaches in Spatial Data Handling}},  [https://books.google.com/books?id=JZNuu8XODQMC&dq=copyleft+symbol+legal+meaning&pg=PA29 page 29].</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Law}}
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
* {{anli|Copyleft}} {{angbr|🄯}}
* [[Enclosed C]]{{snd}} {{angbr|Ⓒ or ⓒ}}
* {{anli|Registered trademark symbol}} <!-- {{angbr|®}} -->
* {{anli|Service mark symbol}}  <!-- {{angbr|℠}} -->
* {{anli|Trademark symbol}} {{angbr|™}}
* {{anli|Unicode input}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{navbox punctuation}}

[[Category:Copyright law|symbol]]
[[Category:United States copyright law]]
[[Category:Typographical symbols]]
[[Category:Symbols introduced in 1909]]