Why are copyright dates for films & TV shows nearly always shown in
Roman Numerals? (This is also the case for some books)

Greetings Rsdonovan:

"Today, Roman numerals are used mainly as an alternative to the
Hindu-Arabic numerals in outlines and other instances in which two
distinct sets of numerals are useful, for clock faces, for ceremonial
and monumental purposes, and by publishers and film distributors who
have an interest in making copyright dates difficult to read."
From http://www.sizes.com/numbers/roman_numerals.htm

"The use of Roman numerals has been mathematically obsolete for more
than 1100 years. Nonetheless, the Roman symbols for numbers continue
to be used in a variety of ways, most of them rather stereotyped: to
mark the hours on clock faces, to number pages in the prefaces of
books, to express copyright dates, and to count items in a series
(such as the Super Bowls of U.S. professional football)."
From http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/roman.html

"Roman Numerals go HOLLYWOOD 
Roman numerals even have their claim to fame in Hollywood. No, Not
just referring to the props on the sets of Ben Hur and Moses, but at
the end of every movie, roman numerals shine the year that the movie
in question was produced. I searched the Internet, and looked in
sevral math and also fulm books, but to no avail. When I called the
Austin Film Library, and spoke to Jim Malloy, he joked Taht, "It's so
the Romans can understand it." He then gave me the adress to write
Entertainment Tonight's Leonard Matthau, from whom I am waiting to see
what his reply is. As a general rule of deduction, one can assume that
the reason Roman Numerals appear at the end of the movie's is for
copyright laws. Research on this proved futile as well, so we will
have to wait and see what Leonard says. It wold make sense for the
international copyright laws tp put the year of production in an
international format to avoid confusion. Roman numerals is just the
perfect choice."
From http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/1671/romanumeralone.html

It appears that other people have wondered the same thing as you.  I
didn't post this as an answer because it doesn't completely answer
your question but I wanted you to see what I had located.  Perhaps
another Researcher will know why and be able to assist you. 
Personally, I think they do it just to look fancy.  lol

Best regards,
    journalist-ga
Google Answers Researcher


SEARCH STRATEGY:

"roman numerals" copyright why

The reason has nothing to do with copyright laws per se. Copyrights
are just as effective and legal when you use "regular" numbers
(example: (c) Copyright 2003). Roman numerals have been used on and
off in the U.S. for copyright notices primarily because they are
considered traditional. There's no big mystery. It's just that some
people prefer the look of them, like the fact they that are
traditional, and/or think they look more classy :)

Kriswrite

I always figured it's so you can't tell when something was actually
made.  Sure MM is easy enough, but how quickly can you recognize
MCMLXXXVIII when it flashes across the screen for an instant?