17 U.S.C. § 401 — Notice of copyright: Visually perceptible copies

(a) General Provisions. When a copyrighted work is published — in the U.S. or elsewhere — by the copyright owner's authority, the owner may place a copyright notice, as described in this section, on publicly distributed copies that people can see, either directly or with a machine or device. (b) Form of Notice. If a notice appears, it must have three parts: (1) the © symbol, the word "Copyright," or the abbreviation "Copr."; (2) the year the work was first published (for compilations or derivative works using earlier published material, the compilation's or derivative work's own publication year is enough; the year may be left off for pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, with any accompanying text, when reproduced on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or other useful items); and (3) the copyright owner's name, a recognizable abbreviation of it, or another generally known way to identify the owner. (c) Position of Notice. The notice must be placed on the copies in a way and location that gives reasonable notice of the copyright claim. The Register of Copyrights will issue regulations giving examples of specific placement methods that satisfy this rule, but those examples are not the only ways to comply. (d) Evidentiary Weight of Notice. If a proper copyright notice appeared on the published copy or copies that a defendant in an infringement lawsuit had access to, the court gives no weight to that defendant's claim of "innocent infringement" as a reason to reduce damages — except as allowed by the last sentence of section 504(c)(2).