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A capital C inside a circle (©), used to indicate a claim of copyright in a work.
Also known as: Copyright sign, C in a circle
The © symbol denotes a claim to copyright ownership. It gained international significance through the 1952 Universal Copyright Convention, which granted foreign copyright protection to works bearing the symbol, the rights holder's name and the year of first publication; it is no longer legally required in most Berne Convention countries but remains in wide conventional use.
Indicates a claim of copyright ownership over a creative work; historically required — alongside the owner's name and year of first publication — for a work to receive copyright protection abroad under the 1952 Universal Copyright Convention.
No longer legally required to establish copyright in most countries today, since the Berne Convention grants automatic protection on creation — the symbol remains conventional shorthand for asserting a rights claim rather than a legal necessity.
Does not create the right and is not required to preserve it. Under the Berne Convention copyright arises automatically on creation in every signatory country; the notice was a formality under earlier American law and stopped being a condition of protection there in 1989. What it still does is identify the owner and the year, and remove any argument that an infringement was innocent.
Is met on the reverse of title pages, in film and television end credits, in website footers, on sheet music and on photographs' metadata — usually in the form symbol, year, owner, which is the notice the older formalities required and which publishers have kept.
The letter C fully enclosed within a circle.
Both belong to the Intellectual property marks system.
Both denote a claimed intellectual-property right, but over different subject matter (creative works vs. brand marks).
A single C in a circle asserts copyright; two C shapes mark a licence granting permissions under it. A CC badge does not waive copyright.