Copyright Symbol © Copy & Paste

About Copyright Symbol

The copyright symbol © (U+00A9), registered trademark ® (U+00AE), and trademark ™ (U+2122) are the three fundamental intellectual property symbols in Unicode. © and ® come from the Latin-1 Supplement block (U+0080–U+00FF), meaning they've been part of digital text standards since the earliest days of personal computing — both appear in extended ASCII character sets from the 1980s. ™ is from the Letterlike Symbols block (U+2100–U+214F), which contains symbols that look like letters but serve as units or abbreviations.

These symbols carry specific legal meaning. © in a work with a date and owner name (© 2025 YourName) provides constructive notice of copyright claim under the Berne Convention — though in most countries, copyright exists automatically without registration or notice. ® can legally only be used with trademarks officially registered with the relevant national trademark office (USPTO in the US, EUIPO in Europe). Using ® on an unregistered trademark is illegal in many jurisdictions.

The Sound Recording Copyright symbol ℗ (U+2117) is less well-known but important in music publishing. It specifically indicates copyright in sound recordings — the actual audio performance — as distinct from © which covers the underlying musical composition. Both symbols appear on commercial releases: © for the song, ℗ for the specific recording. The Service Mark ℠ (U+2120) is the service-industry equivalent of ™, used for brands providing services rather than goods.