Copyright symbol (©)
The copyright symbol (©) is a C in a circle. It is part of a copyright notice, as in “© 2017 John Doe”, and tells readers that someone claims copyright in the work. In the US, the UK and most other countries a work is protected whether or not it carries the symbol.
Easily confused with
How to read it
The US Copyright Office describes a notice as three elements: the symbol © (or ℗ for sound recordings), the word “copyright” or the abbreviation “copr.”; the year of first publication; and the owner’s name. The UK government’s guidance says a work can be marked with ©, the owner’s name and the year of creation, and that marking it or not “does not affect the level of protection you have”; in the UK protection is automatic and there is no register of copyright works. Unicode encodes the sign as U+00A9 COPYRIGHT SIGN. Because the © stands for the word, Butterick’s Practical Typography calls “Copyright © 2026” redundant. This page describes the mark and is not legal advice.
Also searched as: ©, ℗, copyright sign, copyright symbol meaning, copyright symbol symbol, what does © mean.
What a notice still does in the US
Circular 3 lists what an optional notice does: it makes people aware that copyright is claimed, identifies the owner and the year of first publication, and in a lawsuit over a published work it may stop the other side from claiming innocent infringement to limit damages.
Look-alikes
The sound recording copyright sign ℗ (U+2117), a P in a circle, takes the place of © on phonorecords such as CDs and vinyl records (Circular 3). The registered trademark symbol ® is an R in a circle and marks a registered trademark, not a copyright. Unicode also encodes a plain circled letter C, Ⓒ (U+24B8), and a copyleft symbol (U+1F12F). Butterick notes that word processors which turn a typed (c) into © can silently change “Section 12(c)” into “Section 12©”.
More punctuation and typographic symbols
Browse symbols drawn with circles or letters and numbers.
Sources
- C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement (code chart, Range 0080–00FF), The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0, Unicode Consortium, Latin-1 Supplement, 00A9
- Letterlike Symbols: Range 2100–214F (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0, Unicode Consortium, Letterlike Symbols, 2117
- Copyright Notice (Circular 3), U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 3, revised March 2021, U.S. Copyright Office, pp. 1–4
- 17 U.S. Code § 401 - Notice of copyright: Visually perceptible copies, United States Code, Title 17, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, § 401(b)
- How copyright protects your work, GOV.UK guidance, Intellectual Property Office (UK), Overview
- Universal Copyright Convention as revised on 24 July 1971, UNESCO Legal Affairs, Article III, UNESCO, Article III.1
- The Universal Copyright Convention, André Kéréver, The UNESCO Courier, 18 November 2021, UNESCO, article
- Summary of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886), World Intellectual Property Organization, treaty summaries, World Intellectual Property Organization, Article 5
- Copyright (WIPO), World Intellectual Property Organization, copyright overview, World Intellectual Property Organization, overview
- Trademark & copyright symbols, Matthew Butterick, Butterick’s Practical Typography, Matthew Butterick, Trademark & copyright symbols
Last reviewed October 1, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research