Where should the copyright notice go?

Copyright notice should be placed on all copies or phonorecords in a place where it serves to give notice to the public that the author is claiming copyright protection in the work. The Copyright Office has issued regulations concerning the placement of copyright notice of various types of work, and the following list is an example of some of these regulations.

(1) For books, the copyright notice should go in one of six places: (i) on the title page; (ii) on the page after the title page; (iii) on the front cover; (iv) on the back cover; (v) on the first page of the book’s main work; or (vi) on the last page of the book’s main work

(2) For single-leaf works, the notice should go on the front or back of the work.

(3) For periodicals or other serial publications, the notice should go in one of several places: (i) anywhere that a copyright notice for a book can go; (ii) incorporated with, or adjacent to, the publication’s masthead; (iii) on the page containing the publication’s masthead; or (iv) adjacent to a headline near the front of the issue which has the periodical’s title and either the publication date or the volume number and issue number.

(4) For works that are part of a collective work, where the work is only one page, the notice should go under the title or somewhere on that page

(5) For a work that is part of a collective work, and where the work is more than one page, the notice should go: (i) under the work’s title; (ii) on the first page of the main part of the contributed work; (iii) on the last page of the main part of the contributed work; or (iv) on any page the contributed work is on if it’s 20 pages or less. However, most anthologies simply include a separate copyright notice section at the beginning or end of the collected work, listing all of the relevant individual copyrights.

(6) For a work which is reproduced in copies which are machine-readable (such as a software program on a computer disk), the notice should go: (i) on print-outs, at or near the title, or at the end of the work; (ii) at the screen where the user signs on; (iii) as a continuous display on the computer terminal; or (iv) affixed to the media or container used to hold the media (that is, on the disk/CD/DVD or its container).

(7) For movies and other audiovisual works, the notice should be embodied in the copy so that when the movie or work is shown or performed, the notice appears: (i) near the work’s title; (ii) with the cast and credits listing; (iii) at the beginning of the work; or (iv) at the end of the work (this is what most movies do, placing the copyright notice at the very end of the film).

(8) For movies or other audiovisual works that are 60 seconds or less, the notice should appear: (i) anywhere where a notice on longer movies and audiovisual works can go; or (ii) on the film/tape leader, immediately before the work

(9) For movies or other audiovisual works which are distributed to the public, in addition to the above options, the copyright notice can also go on the work’s container (for example, a movie distributed to the public on DVD only needs to include the copyright notice for the film on the DVD packaging).

(10) For pictorial, graphic and sculptural works which are embodied in two-dimensional copies, notice should appear: (i) on the front of the copy; (ii) on the back of the copy; or (iii) on any mounting/framing/etc. to which the copy is attached.

(11) For pictorial, graphic and sculptural works which are reproduced in three-dimensional copies, notice should appear (i) on any visible part of the work; or (ii) on a base, frame, etc. which the work is attached to.

(12) For pictorial, graphic and sculptural works which make it difficult to directly attach a notice, notice can be placed on a tag or label attached to the copy.