A copyright notice, either as symbol or phrase, informs users of the underlying claim to copyright ownership in a published work. For sound recordings you should use produced ℗ symbol instead. Copyright protection is automatic upon creation of the work, though in some countries, including United States, there are some benefits for works officially registered. Currently, copyright applies for an extreme term of life plus 50 or more years in almost every country. Most countries offer protection to foreign works. When a work’s copyright term finally ends, the work passes into the public domain – becomes free to everyone. Note that copyright protects only specific expressions of an idea, not the idea itself. Some ideas can be protected by patents registered per country, or zone (like European Union) in appropriate Patent Offices for a several times shorter, although, still unnecessarily extreme term.

In the United States, the copyright notice consists of three elements:

•     The © symbol, or the word ‘Copyright’ or abbreviation ‘Copr.’;
•     The year of first publication of the copyrighted work;
•     Identification of the owner of the copyright, either by name, abbreviation, or other designation by which it is generally known.