How should copyright be notified when the owner isn't the one publishing the material and wants to be “left out”?

Question

CompanyIP owns a mobile app.

CompanyL is the exclusive licensor of the app and the company who enters into the agreement with Apple and the company whose name will appear in the App Store.

What should the copyright notice look like? I'm inclined to demphasize CompanyIP by going with something like

Copyright 2018. All rights reserved. Exclusive Licensor: CompanyL

But maybe something more appropriate would be

Copyright 2018 CompanyIP. All rights reserved. Exclusive Licensor: CompanyL

I don't think I can say

Copyright 2018 CompanyL. All rights reserved.

or can I?

Answer 1

The answer is "not". A copyright notice, if present, must have the form Copyright <year> <owner>. Since you don't want that, the alternative is to omit the notice altogether. This does not invalidate the copyright.

The "All rights reserved" blurb dates back to the 1910 Buenos Aires copyright treaty, and stopped being useful in 2000 when Nicaragua dropped the requirement for including that phrase.