Enter the owner's name and the year the site first went live, pick the symbol or the word Copyright, and decide whether to show a year range. The generator writes the footer line and gives you HTML, a small script that keeps the current year right every January, and a React version.
| Element | Accepted forms | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Symbol or word | ©, the word "copyright" or the abbreviation "copr." | © |
| Year | The year of first publication of the work | 2019 |
| Owner | The name of the copyright owner | Corner Street Bakery LLC |
Updated
A footer notice takes ten seconds to write and is easy to get slightly wrong: the wrong year, a year that stopped updating in 2021, or a brand name instead of the legal owner. This tool keeps the three official elements in order and adds the year handling for you.
Copyright owner: Corner Street Bakery LLC
Year of first publication: 2019
Symbol or word: ©, Copyright, Copr.
Show a year range up to this year
Add "All rights reserved."
Your footer line: © 2019-2026 Corner Street Bakery LLC. All rights reserved.
Plain HTML
<footer>
<p>© 2019-2026 Corner Street Bakery LLC. All rights reserved.</p>
</footer>HTML with a self-updating year
<footer>
<p>© 2019-<span id="copy-year">2026</span> Corner Street Bakery LLC. All rights reserved.</p>
</footer>
<script>
document.getElementById("copy-year").textContent = new Date().getFullYear();
</script>React component
const FIRST_YEAR = 2019;
export function CopyrightNotice() {
return (
<p>
© {FIRST_YEAR}-{new Date().getFullYear()} Corner Street Bakery LLC. All rights reserved.
</p>
);
}If the © sign turns into odd characters after saving, the file is probably not saved as UTF-8. The named entity always works.
© renders as the © symbol in every browser.
<p style="font-size:14px;color:#555">© 2019 Corner Street Bakery LLC</p>Circular 3 describes a notice as a statement that informs the public that a copyright owner is claiming ownership. It also says notice identifies the owner and the year of first publication, which helps anyone looking for permission to reuse your text or photos.
Your work is protected without the notice; the line simply makes the claim and the contact point obvious.
A footer stuck on an old year makes a business look closed. The self-updating snippet fills in the current year when the page loads, and keeps a written fallback in the HTML so the line still reads correctly when scripts are off.
Not in the United States for works published on or after March 1, 1989. Circular 3 calls notice optional for them but notes legal benefits for including it, such as identifying the owner for people seeking permission.
Circular 3 lists the year of first publication of the work. Many sites show a range from the first year to the current year because pages keep changing; that is a common convention rather than a rule this tool can confirm for your case.
It is not one of the three elements in Circular 3. Plenty of sites include it as plain wording; the generator lets you leave it out.
Only in the script and React versions. They read the year with getFullYear, which uses the visitor's local time. The plain HTML version stays as written until you edit it.
No. It is a formatting tool based on the Copyright Office's public circular. Ask a lawyer about your own situation.
Related: How to copyright a website, Terms and conditions generator, Privacy policy generator, Website disclaimer generator.
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