Placing A Copyright Notice in Your Video Part 1

In this age of voluntary and involuntary sharing of videos it might be a good idea to add a notification indicating what the status of the video is and who own the video.

It isn't hard, just a few numbers to have on a scrap of paper nearby. For the record, I am using a U.S. keyboard. Those of you on the other side of the creek have different keyboards, methods or codes. The concept is the same but you might have to adapt them to your local needs.

 Format of the Copyright Notice

In the U.S. you don't have to apply the copyright notice. Your work is protected at the point it is fixed in its final form.  But some folks are hard headed and need a reminder that the video belongs to the creator of the video and not to them.

The correct format is the symbol + the year of first publication + the name of the copyright holder.

That works out to be: © 2012 Jayne Doe

There is not one way to do this. You can add the notice at the beginning of a video, in the credits or slap it at the end. If you want it to be a lower third that runs thought the video you can do that too.

Old School Method

This is old school as in how the ancestors did it in the age of manual and electric typewriters. There was no dedicated copyright key. It was typed as bracing parentheses and the letter "c" as in (c).

There is a better way.

The Keyboard Entry Method

I’m a little concerned about the Mac version because I have conflicting info about the keystrokes. 

Macintosh

• Copyright - press and hold the Option key then letter "g" to generated ©
• Registered Trademark - press and hold the Option key then letter "r" to generate ®
• Trademark -  press and hold the Option key then press the letter "t" to generate ™

It seems that some of you Mac folks can use the Alt key as well. If you can make heads or tails on this Apple OS X instructions on how to add symbols more power to you.

Windows/PC

• Copyright - press the Alt key and 0169 then release to generate ©
• Registered - press the Alt key and 0174 then release to generate ®
• Trademark - press the Alt key and 0153 then release to generate ™ 

You can copy the code and then insert it into you title generator. Or can you? Sometimes you can't and that is why there is a part two.

Related Posts

• A Look At Copyright Video from YouTube
• Fair Use Resources
• What Is A Creative Commons License