Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2018 April 27

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April 27

Unknown symbols - need identification

Pertaining to the music album: Origin (Evanescence album) The page does not show the back of this album, can this be explained why? On the back of this album is an unknown unusual marking of symbols, they seem to be important but I have never seen them anywhere else. Not sure if they totally mean nothing or if they stand for some something significant? If needed can supply a picture of the images so they can be explained what they stand for or what they are at all. Hallow88 (talk) 20:04, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever myself seen a Wikipedia article that illustrated the back cover of an album: it would only be worth doing so (and invoking "fair use" of such copyrighted material, as is always necessary for the front covers) if there was something really significant about it.

In this case someone would have to know the answer to your question from a published Reliable Source, and write about it in the article. I'd imagine that would require someone such as the cover artist, or a band member, to have talked about it in an interview with Rolling Stone or a similary trustworthy journal, or on the band's official website (linked in the article Evanescence).

Please note that posting a picture of the cover here is not a good idea, as it would be a breach of copyright and would almost certainly be removed immediately. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.218.14.51 (talk) 22:15, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Then how come the front of the album is allowed? Hallow88 (talk) 22:49, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Fair use, for identification purposes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Makes sense, but why can't the symbols I am referring to not be looked at in general, themselves? Basically, just to know what they represent, the symbols I believe are some kind of Unicode in a certain formation. Hallow88 (talk) 00:51, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Is this the back cover you're talking about? I see nothing more unusual there than the name of the band in mirror writing. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 07:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but instead of the (C)&(P) there is a upside down and mirrored type of @ symbol for the (C) and (P) and a strange type of B for the & symbol. I have lots of albums that don't have the (C)&(P) anywhere at all so it must not have to be used always especially for previously unreleased *DEMO albums*. Do the weird symbols have meaning or just made up and mean nothing, is all I am interested in. Hallow88 (talk) 17:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

So you're talking about the copyright (©) and sound-recording-copyright (℗) symbols in the sideways-printed copyright notice, which each have the outer circle replaced by two slightly disconnected arcs. You might have said that in the first place. I can't imagine that it's anything but someone's idea of an artistic variation on the standard symbols, but maybe my imagination is not sufficient. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 19:02, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

The copyright (C)&(P) can be written artistically sometimes, but these symbols I am speaking of don't resemble them at all really. They can be seen here https://evanescencereference.info/wiki/index.php?title=Origin under paragraph "Modern bootlegs". Those symbols look unusual to me and not (C) & (P). Hallow88 (talk) 23:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

You're referring to the text on the "Fake" version? I don't mean to be dense, but surely that's just a cheeky gag that the work is a bootleg rather than the legitimate copyrighted work. Matt Deres (talk) 02:00, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

The question still remains, are those symbols or whatever they are real of some kind of purpose or just scribble of nothingness and not copyright? Hallow88 (talk) 04:03, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

You could try uploading a picture of the back of the album to one of those image-hosting websites such as Imgur. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:33, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Are you referring to the right side of this image? None of these things strike me as being significant; they look like sloppiness, with, as I said, a bit of cheekiness at removing the copyright symbols since it's pirated. The stylized & becoming a B looks like an OCR error, and the spelling mistakes and unclear printing look like the work of a hack who'e trying to steal the work of others while doing the minimum of labour themselves. Perhps you could explain why you think the backwards @ symbol should have a deeper meaning, but not the poor spelling? Matt Deres (talk) 15:00, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

How could it just be sloppiness, the rest of the album looks great. The strange @ symbol might have a deeper meaning, because it looks as if it was used purposely more than just sloppiness, if it was sloppiness it would most likely have been blurred or double imaged. Well, maybe nobody knows, thanks for looking anyways. Hallow88 (talk) 16:39, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

There's probably no deeper meaning beyond the counterfeiter thinking "we don't recognize the symbols used on the real album... eh, these ones look close enough". Also, there's other evidence of sloppiness in "all right reserved" (which also suggests that the text was typed, rather than copied as an image from the cover art) MChesterMC (talk) 10:43, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Still wondering myself, how does anyone know that any copy is the "REAL" Origin copy. Perhaps they are all counterfeit, maybe the actual demo had no (C) (P) or any symbols at all, also the Wikipedia page of the album gives no information, what makes you so 100% sure on this? Hallow88 (talk) 00:31, 3 May 2018 (UTC)