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The use of a copyright notice is the responsibility of the copyright owner and does not require permission from, or registration with, the Copyright Office. Copyright notice was required for all works first published before March 1, 1989 (in the U.S.), subject to some exceptions discussed [here]. If the notice was omitted or a mistake was made in using copyright notice, the work generally lost copyright protection in the United States. Copyright notice is optional for works published on or after March 1, 1989, unpublished works, and foreign works; however, there are legal benefits for including notice on your work.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1931 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of "publication" for public art. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (50 p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 p.m.a.), Mexico (100 p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties. العربية ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ čeština ∙ Deutsch ∙ Ελληνικά ∙ English ∙ español ∙ فارسی ∙ français ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ Nederlands ∙ português ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ ไทย ∙ Tiếng Việt ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ +/−

General copyright claims by The Rosicrucian Fellowship ("TRF") on their home website cover the date range 2008 – 2023+; publications by the Rays from the Rose Cross (ISSN 0744-432X) occurred, 1921 – 2004. Individual copyright claims by the TRF regarding this magazine and its contents—for vol. 88 nos. 2, 3, 4, spanning March through August of 1996—exist, without individual copyright claims for later months of that year; see copyright claim, CSN0071975. The work in question, "The Winged Self" (or, the "The Winged Cross"), is not given attribution by the magazine to any individual, nor a specific year of creation in its mention of the work in the September/October 1996 issue; it also does not claim creative ownership over the work itself, only stating that the New Age Bible and Philosophy Center (hereon, "the Center", no longer in operation) courteously provided a copy of the work to the TRF for use in that issue. The magazine Rose Cross, on the other hand, attributes its emblematic use by the Center, and original creative interpretative work to an unknown artist who was paid for this work in an informal capacity (i.e., not explicitly under employment duty, for hire, or in written agreement), at an unknown specific date ranged to the late 1930s. There is no official claim with the U.S. Copyright Office by the Center, of this late-Rosicrucian symbol. The only supported assertion by the TRF, is that the Center handled the original work since 1996, at the latest. While the Center claimed copyrights on their website for 2005–2008, it is not clear to which items they lay claim; furthermore, given that the work was not done by hire or under employment duty, instead effectively "sold" to the Center—first offered to be created gratis by the anonymous artist, as a token of gratitude to the work's source of inspiration—the original creator thereby transferred claims of ownership to the Center upon said sale (see, Compendium Chapters 1902, 1905, and 1906), constituting publication without registration to the Copyright Office (and consequently, without due renewals), or appropriate verifiable copyright notice: the original copy transferred ownership with the intent of promulgation of other copies to the general public, as evidenced in the front matter of the 1996 September/October issue of Rays from the Rose Cross (stating, "Imprints are available.")