Your keyboard includes a trademark symbol ( ™ ), a registered trademark symbol ( ® ), and a copyright symbol ( © ).
Use these symbols when you need them. Don’t use alphabetic approximations like (TM) or (c).
Trademark symbols are set as superscripts — smaller characters positioned above the baseline of the text (Roxy’s Pizza™, Caring Is Our Business®). If you use proper trademark symbols, they’ll appear at the right size and height. No space is needed between the text and the trademark symbol.
Copyright symbols appear in line with the text (© 1999). Use a nonbreaking space between the copyright symbol and the year to ensure the two don’t end up on different lines or pages.
To dispel an urban legend that persists among many civilians, and more than a few lawyers: with respect to newly created works, the copyright symbol has no magic powers. Putting a copyright symbol on something you made does not grant you a copyright. Nor does failing to use it deprive you of a copyright.
While the copyright symbol does not have any magical powers, it does have some legal powers; it guts the “I didn’t know” defense. In order to protect their rights, authors should make a habit of using a proper copyright notice consisting of: the © symbol, the author’s name, and the first date of publication of the work.
Section 401, paragraph d of the Copyright Act:
(d) Evidentiary Weight of Notice. — If a notice of copyright in the form and position specified by this section appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant in a copyright infringement suit had access, then no weight shall be given to such a defendant’s interposition of a defense based on innocent infringement in mitigation of actual or statutory damages, except as provided in the last sentence of section 504(c)(2).
AK’s text illustrates a trap that word processors have set for attorneys. He typed “504(c)(2)” and the “Auto Replace” function changed the (c) to ©. That’s great, if you need to make © symbols a lot, but I’m more likely to need to write Section 501(c)(3) or Rule 803(c)(1). I always turn off or delete this particular entry in the Auto Replace list.
I take it back, AK. The website’s editor made the change, not you word processor.
(c) <- Agh!
I agree with the first of the three anonymous comments, but rather than deleting this entry from AutoCorrect, I simply change it so that I have to use two parentheses on each side of the “c” in order to generate the symbol.
I’ve seen the copyright symbol right next to the date, with no space between:
©2012 Company ABC.
Is that considered ok?
It’s not wrong, but I put a (nonbreaking) space between the © and the date. The idea is that the © symbol directly displaces the word “copyright,” so it should be spaced like any other word.