Sound recording copyright symbol
The sound recording copyright symbol or phonogram symbol, , is the copyright symbol used to provide notice of copyright or neighboring rights in a sound recording embodied in a phonorecord. It was first introduced in the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations in 1961.
The letter P in stands for phonogram, which is the legal term used in many countries to refer to such work.
A sound recording has a separate copyright that is distinct from that of the underlying work, if any. The sound recording copyright extends only to a particular rendition of a work and not to any other sound recordings of the same underlying work, even if they are created by the same recording artist.
International treaties
The symbol first appeared in the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations, a multilateral treaty relating to copyright, in 1961. Article 11 of the Rome Convention provided:When the Geneva Phonograms Convention, another multilateral copyright treaty, was signed in 1971, it included a similar provision in its Article 5:
United States law
The symbol was introduced into United States copyright law in 1971, when the US extended limited copyright protection to sound recordings. The United States anticipated signing onto the Geneva Phonograms Convention, which it had helped draft. On October 15, 1971, Congress enacted the Sound Recording Act of 1971, also known as the Sound Recording Amendment of 1971, which amended the 1909 Copyright Act by adding protection for sound recordings and prescribed a copyright notice for sound recordings. The Sound Recording Act added a copyright notice provision specific to sound recordings, which incorporated the symbol prescribed in the Geneva Convention, to the end of section 19 of the 1909 Copyright Act:The provision that currently governs it is in, the codification of the Copyright Act of 1976. That section provides for the a non-mandatory copyright notice on sound recordings: