My default metadata has copyright information in it when I import into Lightroom.
You can add the information to all of your files, but there is no way to prevent anyone from stripping out metadata when it is online. The work is automatically protected when it is created, so there is not a legal requirement to include the copyright information, but it can help if someone is trying to track you down through a third party (assuming that the information hasn't been removed along the way). Unless you plan on publishing your work, I don't really see the point in registering the copyrights. Registering will allow you to claim statutory damages in cases of copyright infringement, and you must register within 3 months of publication. If you don't register and you sue for infringement, you can only sue for actual damages, that is, how much you would normally get for sale of your work. If you don't normally sell your work, then it's more difficult to establish an amount for actual damages. When you do get to the point of publishing (and putting them on the web is a gray area that could go either way) your pictures, you should definitely register the ones that are used (and probably others from the set/session as well). If it's a hobby, do you have the time, energy and money to pursue a copyright infringement lawsuit. You may be in the right legally, but if you can't afford to protect it, you've already lost. On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 7:38 PM, John Sessoms <jsessoms...@nc.rr.com> wrote: > I've been looking through the catalog of digital images I've accumulated > since I started shooting with the *ist-D; part of my reorganizing and > finally trying to do REAL backups, figuring out what I might have that's > worthy to go in a portfolio & such. > > For the most part, I don't have copyright information in the metadata. > 99-44/100% of these will probably never be seen. Anything I post online or > submit has or will have the copyright when I send it out. > > However, I was wondering. > > What do y'all do about copyright information when storing your files? > > Do you go ahead and change ALL the file info to "copyrighted" and append > metadata? What info do you include beyond (c) date name? > > Is it worth going back through the whole catalog and updating copyright? It > *IS* fairly easy to do in Bridge, but is it actually a good idea? > > What about registering copyright? I've been looking on the Copyright Office > website, and it's going to take a little figuring out. Seems like there's a > limit to how many you can do at one time, but they don't make it clear how > many that is. It looks like the eCO thing is time limited - you can > copyright as many as you can type in the info in a half hour? > > And they don't take PEF files, it's gotta be JPEG or PSD, which means I'm > going to have to go through a batch conversion process before I can submit > them. > > Anyway ... your thoughts? > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. > -- Aloha Photographer Photoblog http://alohaphotog.blogspot.com/ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
