AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

To be legal, it must include the year.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

It's a level of protection. And I do sell my stuff.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

Absolutely correct about federal courts. But I have had local legal issues won just because the copyright was imbedded in the image.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Alas, including a symbol has nothing to do with 'legal'.

Symbols like © @ # $ % * & and so forth have nothing to do with registering a US copyright. Registering the copyright of your digital images with the US Copyright office is how one creates a copyright that has legal protections.

All the details and process -- including online processing and payments -- are described in detail as: https://www.copyright.gov/

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

Setting a date in Nikon’s is done under the copyright function.

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

The Date. (From a copyright website)

The copyright date is perhaps greatest trap for the unwary. One of the purposes of the copyright date, under U.S. copyright law, is to assist members of the public in identifying which works are now in the public domain. To do this, a member of the public would take the copyright date appearing in the notice, add to it the number of years of the copyright term, and thereby arrive at a conclusion as to when the copyright would have expired. But what if the material contained in the work was developed in different years? Do you use the oldest date and deprive yourself of those extra few years of copyright protection? Do you use the present date and risk misleading the public that the entire work is protected by copyright starting from that year and ending at the end of copyright term? Such incorrect statements of fact in a copyright notice could lead a court to conclude that no copyright exists in the work as a result.

So what do you do when a work is created or revised over many years? If only one year is to appear in a notice, it should be the oldest year, associated with the oldest of the matter in the work. In other words, if one must err it should be in the direction of omitting newer years, not older years. Another approach is to put a range of years. For example, if the oldest matter in the work dates from 1998 and if the newest matter dates from 2000, the notice might say Copyright 1999 to 2000 followed by the name of the copyright owner.

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

I have heard conflicting information on that. I’ll look into it.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

That sounds like the best argument for setting the current date into your camera so that the date on the copyright note in the metadata is the date that the picture was taken.

I assume that if significant modifications to the image were to be performed in postprocessing the copyright date could be updated for the new image to cover the date it was changed.

SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia

I know it has no legal clout but if ever there is a dispute about who took the photo, my name is down as the artist and the copyright holder in the Exif data.
I know this can be removed if anyone has the data but I can still always prove that the original was taken by me.
I once found one of my pics on Wikipedia and was listed as England's wildlife pic of the month. It was obviously "stolen" by someone on this site several years ago.
As soon as I sent them the original, it was removed in a matter of seconds.

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

I found one of my images (attached) being used to sell products on E Bay. I notified the user that he was unauthorized to steal and use my image. He didn’t care. Once I notified E Bay of the theft, it was taken down fairly quickly.

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

good idea, as for copyright.
we had a class on copyright. it was very boring at times but interesting when they started talking about actual cases.
In court everything you can show to prove its your work is a plus.
Copy right on the photo, copyright in the meta data . and of course the fact that you registered it with the office.
I think it was $55.00 to copyright up to 750 photos at a time. ( not too bad considering past prices)
so when some guy sitting in an arm chair tells you to not worry about it, maybe you better talk to someone who actually knows the law. ( thats not me im just passing on info I was told by an attorney in a photography class)

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Thanks for the reminder. I try to keep my cameras current and the clocks correct. Whether there is an intent to assert copyright protection or not, there is a long list of reasons why it is a good idea to mark any work created with the creator's name and the date of origin. This was first impressed on me during the first week at my first job (with a large research and manufacturing company) 50 years ago. The validity of doing it has never changed, except perhaps to become even more important.

rcarol

I could care less about your waterfront property but I might be interested in your bridge.

phot0n0ob

you can put whatever you want into the "copyright notice" box, e.g. "copyright John Doe 2024, all rights reserved"

phot0n0ob

I have a recurring ("every Jan 01") entry in my calendar to make sure I do not forget