Copyright Symbol (other)
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The copyright symbol, or copyright sign, (a circled capital letter C for copyright), is the
symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
used in copyright notices for works other than sound recordings.
17 U.S.C. In the United States Code, Title 17 outlines its copyright law. It was codified into positive law on July 30, 1947. The latest version is from December 2016. * —Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright * —Copyright Ownership and Transfer * — ...
The use of the symbol is described by the Universal Copyright Convention. 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 german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese , neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen , website ...
, effective March 1, 1989, removed the requirement for the copyright symbol from
U.S. copyright law The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of thei ...
, 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 almanacs of the 1670s; books included a printed copy of the local coat-of-arms to indicate their authenticity. 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 An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called Public and private bills, private laws), or to the general public (Public and private bills, public laws). For a Bill (law) ...
, in the year , by A. B., in the office of the
Librarian of Congress The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. In addition to overseeing the library, the Libra ...
, 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
he work of art He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
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 in section 18 of the Copyright Act of 1909, Copyright Act of 1909, §18 and initially applied only to pictorial, graphic and sculptural works. 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 George Herbert Putnam (September 20, 1861 – August 14, 1955) was an American librarian. He was the eighth (and also the longest-serving) Librarian of Congress from 1899 to 1939. He implemented his vision of a universal collection with strengt ...
, 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 In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...
. 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.''An Act to amend title 17, United States Code, entitled "Copyrights"'', .


US copyright notice

In the United States, the copyright notice consists of: * "©" 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: 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 effective March 1, 1989.


Berne Convention

In countries party to the
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of l ...
, 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. 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 german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese , neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen , website ...
, which became effective March 1, 1989, 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. The 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 . Unicode also has and , which have an appearance similar to the character.


Typing the character

Because the © symbol is not available on typical typewriters or in ASCII, it has long been common to approximate this symbol with the characters (c in parentheses), a practice that has been accepted by the
U.S. Copyright Office The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that maintains records of copyright registration, including a copyright catalog. It is used by copyright title searchers who are ...
under both the
1909 Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * Januar ...
and
1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
U.S. Copyright Acts. Word processing software with an
autocorrection Autocorrection, also known as text replacement, replace-as-you-type or simply autocorrect, is an automatic data validation function commonly found in word processors and text editing interfaces for smartphones and tablet computers. Its principal ...
facility can recognise this three-character sequence and convert it automatically to a single copyright symbol. On modern computer systems, the formal symbol can be generated using any of these methods: * Windows: * Mac: * Linux: . * ChromeOS: , , then or . * HTML: or


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). It has no legal meaning. Additional . See ,
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See also

*
Enclosed C Enclosed C or circled Latin C (Ⓒ or ⓒ) is a typographical symbol. As one of many enclosed alphanumerics, the symbol is a " C" within a circle. Encodings The symbols are encoded by Unicode in the block Latin-1 supplement as and . Uses So ...
*
Registered trademark symbol The registered trademark symbol, , is a typographic symbol that provides notice that the preceding word or symbol is a trademark or service mark that has been registered with a national trademark office. A trademark is a symbol, word, or word ...
*
Trademark symbol The trademark symbol is a symbol to indicate that the preceding mark is a trademark, specifically an unregistered trademark. It complements the registered trademark symbol which is reserved for trademarks registered with an appropriate gov ...
* Service mark symbol


References

{{navbox punctuation Copyright law United States copyright law Typographical symbols Symbols introduced in 1909