Copyright Symbol

The copyright symbol takes the shape of a capital c letter inside the circle and means that a specific company or a person owns a certain product. This product cannot be used without the owner's consent. The sign was first introduced in the United States through the copyright act in 1909. It was then limited to particular types of products like graphic and sculpture, and then it was extended later in 1954. Since the symbol was not accessible on typewriters and computers, it was common to use (C) to give the same function as the current copyright symbol. 

History of Copyright Symbol

The Universal Copyright Convention described the use of the copyright symbol. The symbol is also widely recognized but, under the Berne Convention, the copyright symbol is no longer required in most nations to assert new copyright. According to the Act of 1988 - Berne Convention Implementation, valid on March 1, 1989, the requirement for the copyright symbol was removed from the US copyright law. However, the presence or absence of the copyright symbol is still legally significant in works published before that date. Nowadays, the symbol of copyright continues to affect various remedies accessible to a copyright holder whose work is mainly infringed.

Previous symbols that were indicating a copyright status of work are seen in Scottish almanacs of 1670. These books hold a printed copy of the so-called local coat-of-arms in order to show their authenticity. In the US, the Copyright Act of 1802, required very first copyright notice.

When does the Copyright Symbol come in use

Later, as a result of the Copyright Act of 1909, the copyright symbol ⟨©⟩ was first introduced in the United States, particularly in section 18. The symbol was initially applied only to graphic, pictorial, and sculptural works. The Copyright Act of 1909 was mainly meant to be an entire overhaul and rewrite of existing copyright law. As it was initially proposed in the bill's draft, the copyright protection immediately required putting the word "copyright" and a sanctioned abbreviation on the work of art itself. That requirement included paintings too; Hence, the argument about the frame was detachable. In conference sessions conducted in 1905 and 1906, among copyright stakeholders on the proposed bill, the representatives of artist organizations retorted to this requirement. They wished to put no more on the work than the artist's name. As a compromise, the probability was created in order to add a relatively unintrusive mark, which was the capital letter "C" within a circle. It was required that the symbol of the letter "C" was obligatory to appear on work next to its artist's name. That sign indicated a far more elaborate copyright notice elsewhere, which was still to be accepted to be put on the mounting. Indeed, as a result of the submission of the version of the bill to Congress in 1906, which was compiled by the Copyright Commission right under the direction of the Librarian of Congress, namely Herbert Putnam, included a provision that a special copyright symbol, particularly the letter "C" must inclose within a circle. That sign could have been used instead of the full word "copyright" or the abbreviation "corp.". However, it should have been used only for a limited category of copyrightable works, such as works of art but not for the ordinary periodicals or books.

In 1946, the formulation of the 1909 Act was incorporated and left unchanged as title 17 of the United States Code. Later, a 1954 amendment to the US law extended the use of the copyright symbol to any published, copyrighted works, and the copyright symbol was permitted to be used as an alternative and substitutions of the names "Copyright" and "Copr.", this was diffused in all copyright notices.

The Unicode of Copyright Symbol

The character of the copyright symbol is mapped in Unicode as "U + 00A9 © COPYRIGHT" sign. The Unicode also has "U + 24B8 Ⓒ" (Circled Latin capital letter - C along with another Unicode of "U + 24D2, ⓒ" which has an appearance quite similar to the character itself. However, the copyright symbol with a circle "©" symbol is not accessible and available on standard typewriters, keyboards, or in ASCII, as it has long been common to approximate this copyright symbol along with the characters of namely < (C) > (C in parentheses). It was a practice that the US Copyright Office accepted right under both 1909 and 1976, according to the US Copyright Acts. The word processing software with an autocorrection facility can easily find and recognize this three-character sequence. Then it gives the possibility to convert it automatically right to a single copyright symbol.

How to type Copyright Symbol

On modern computer systems, the formal icon of copyright symbol ⟨©⟩ may be generated using any of these methods listed below:

• On US international keyboard layout (notably, on Linux, Windows, and Chrome OS): Press the button of "Alt Gr" + C;
• On Windows: Press “Alt” + 0169;
• On Mac: Press “⌥ Option + g;
• In Linux: Click on the “Compose OC”;
• On Chrome OS: First, click on the "Ctrl" button, then press "⇧ Shift" +u, a9, and then click on " ↵ Enter" or "Space" buttons;
• In HTML: use “&copy”, or “&#169” signs;