Articles
Embedding Your Copyright Information in Your Meta data
Photographers and creative artists are always looking for ways to make sure their images are protected by their copyright. Some methods include adding watermarks and company logos on their images. Granted, none of these stop an infringer, but they do put the infringer on notice that they may be in violation of Copyright Law.
Another popular way to ensure your image has your copyright is to embed your copyright information into your metadata. Metadata is a collection of information that stays with your image to help identify the image, its owner, and when it was created.
In your metadata, you want to encode your copyright notice. Below are a few examples of how your copyright notice should be worded:
© year of publication, name of photographer/studio© all rights reserved, year of publication, (name of studio/ photographer)
Metadata is not visual at the surface level when you are looking at the image, but can be seen when using any editing software and looking at the embedded code. Since your metadata is not seen when looking at the image, it is always good to use it in combination with watermarks or logo placement.
And, as always, remember-- you always own your copyright unless you have agreed to give it away. Just because you create the images for someone does not mean they own the copyright.
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