[wp-hackers] Wordpress seems to serialize image_meta of a featured image incorrectly

[Jeff Tchang]

Noticing some odd behavior when I upload an image with meta information.
One of the fields has "© 2013".

When it is serialized to the database I see:

s:7:"© 2013";

When I do this in vanilla php:

$a = chr(169) . " 2013";
echo serialize($a);

I get

s:6:"© 2013";

which seems like the correct serialization. Has anyone run into this before?