Copyright Sign
Block: Latin-1 Supplement
- Symbol
- ©
- Unicode
U+00A9- Unicode name
- COPYRIGHT SIGN
- Block
- Latin-1 Supplement
- Script
- Common
- Category
- Symbol, Other
- Type
- Unicode symbol
The copyright sign © is U+00A9, formally named COPYRIGHT SIGN. It is the dedicated copyright-mark character used in copyright-notice text. Unicode separately encodes ℗ SOUND RECORDING COPYRIGHT (U+2117), ® REGISTERED SIGN (U+00AE), and circled letter C characters such as Ⓒ U+24B8, so those characters should be identified by name and code point rather than treated as interchangeable versions of ©.
What © Represents in a Copyright Notice
The character © is Unicode U+00A9 COPYRIGHT SIGN. In a copyright notice, the mark is one element of a statement that identifies a copyright claim; U.S. Copyright Office guidance describes notice as including the copyright symbol (or an accepted text alternative), a year, and the copyright owner's name.
At the character level, U+00A9 identifies the copyright-mark value in the text. It does not supply the separate date or owner fields of a full notice, so preserve the surrounding notice text as well as the symbol when copying or exporting it.
If this is not the character you meant, use what symbol is ©? to identify the mark from pasted text, Unicode, or its visual shape.
©, ℗, and ® Are Separate Unicode Signs
Unicode assigns separate records to © COPYRIGHT SIGN (U+00A9), ℗ SOUND RECORDING COPYRIGHT (U+2117), and ® REGISTERED SIGN (U+00AE). Their names identify different signs and different character values: © is the copyright-mark character, ℗ is the sound-recording copyright character, and ® is the registered-sign character.
For character identification, preserve the sign actually present in the source. A copied © remains U+00A9 unless the text is intentionally changed to a different named sign; visual look-alikes are handled separately from this purpose-based comparison.
© Is Not a Circled Letter C Character
The copyright sign © is U+00A9. Unicode also encodes Ⓒ as U+24B8 CIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C, a different character whose identity is a circled letter rather than COPYRIGHT SIGN. Unicode NamesList cross-references the two records because the distinction can matter when reading or copying text.
If the source must preserve exact text, inspect the code point instead of choosing whichever circled-C glyph looks closest in the current font. The visual resemblance does not collapse the two Unicode identities.
Encoding © in HTML and Source Text
The encoded identity can be represented without relying on the glyph. U+00A9 = decimal 169 = HTML © / ©. A Unicode escape-style representation is u00A9. The UTF-8 byte sequence for the current glyph is C2 A9.
These forms are useful when a font does not display the symbol clearly, when debugging copied text, or when comparing characters that look alike. Numeric references and escapes identify the underlying code point or sequence rather than a particular font drawing.