CopyrightWhat is Copyright?Anyone involved in a creative activity is given rights under copyright law. This applies to such work as taking a photograph, making a painting, writing an article, book or play, making a sculpture, composing music, making a film or sound recording.
These rights protect the created work from unauthorised reproduction and ensure that the creator can license the work to be used, usually in exchange for payment.
There are no world-wide copyright conditions and regulations; they vary from country to country.
In Britain, the basis of modern copyright law is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. Many other countries now follow the principles laid down in this Act with their own copyright and intellectual property legislation.
Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, copyright protection exists automatically once the work is created. No special action or registration with a public authority of the work is necessary.
The Act states that:
This means that the photographer owns the copyright of the his/her photographs and can control the copying, reproduction, distribution and general use of the images.
With photography and most other subjects, copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the author. To a large extent, this is the same for the USA, but there are detailed variations to this.
Names and slogans are not protected by copyright but can be registered sometimes. Words as such are not covered by copyright but make up your own word and turn it into a logo then it will be protected.
Any copy of the whole or part of a copyright work will infringe copyright if permission has not been given by the copyright owner.
If, however, a new photograph deliberately recreates a photograph with extremely similar subject matter, arrangement and lighting, then there could be an infringement of copyright.
Buildings and sculptures on public display are not covered by such copyright protection. Nor are pictures and advertisements which end up as a small part of a general scene.
A warning usually pops up in Photoshop if one tries to copy bank notes. Reproducing bank notes as a same size flat copy is illegal. The reproduction must be substantially distorted to avoid this problem.
In the United States of America, copyright is also automatic once a new work is created, but in practice it is highly recommended that every such work is registered with the United States Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov/
The registration of images at the US Copyright Office is valid in court as proof of the existence of the photograph and date of its creation.
If an image has not been registered with the US Copyright Office, it can be very difficult to get a copyright lawyer to take on a case of copyright infringement because damages will be considerably reduced.
Copyright NoticeIn Britain, as well as there being no legal requirement to register a work, there is also no legal need to have a copyright notice on it.A copyright notice does, however, present a warning and tells people you are aware of copyright and that you are well organized. The inclusion of a copyright notice ensures that no-one can claim they infringed the copyright innocently. A copyright notice is more useful in some countries and sometimes almost essential.
The conventional standard format for a copyright notice is:
Copyright © 2008 Joe Bloggs.
The symbol © signifies copyright in many countries but not all. Because of this, the word Copyright should be used as well.
The year is the year of first publication rather than creation.
The name of the photographer should follow.
All rights reserved. MetadataMetadata is that information which is embedded into a digital image.This can be done in Photoshop or in Bridge. 
The panel can be found at File > File Info. Camera details are automatically embedded, but items such as contact details, keywords and descriptions can be added. Copyright details should also be included.
The easiest way is to set up an Action in Photoshop. The main copyright details are put in every time and an individual image number can be added to each file at the same time.
Or a template can be created.With the Info panel open, click on the small arrow in the top right corner and drop down to Save Metadata Template. Selected images can then have this template applied as a batch. 
When saving a file with Save For Web in Photoshop, versions prior to CS2 automatically stripped out the metadata. In CS3, there is the option of keeping it in, but it's all of nothing.In the Save For Web panel, click on the arrow in the top right corner and drop down to Edit Output Settings. Choose Saving Files and check the box for Include XMP. Photographers sometimes send out Raw files to clients, but metadata cannot be written into a Raw file. A normal Raw file has the metadata in the sidecar file, which can easily be separated. If a Raw file is saved as a DNG digital negative, then the metadata is packaged with the file. Photoshop can write DNG files and most other programmes can open them. Also in the package, there can be a jpeg image with all your changes as a sample. Removing metadata copyright statements is a criminal offence under UK and US law and it is in the same category as someone who infringes copyright. The problem is proving it and as this is nearly impossible, it never gets prosecuted. Publishers have been getting away with this for years, blaiming it on error or software. One approach would be to state clearly in estimates and invoices that images contain full metadata about copyright ownership and the removal of this data is illegal and part of copyright infringement.
Losing CopyrightCopyright law varies between countries and is always changing. As well as each European country having its own laws, there are European Union directives and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
A copyright owner can waive the rights or can assign them to someone else in a contract. Care should be taken that rights are not signed away inadvertently by not reading the small print in a contract.
Never surrender copyright.
To lose copyright, it has to be specifically signed away with a contract.
Assigning copyright in a will is a different matter because all the right can be passed on like any other property.
Moral RightsMoral Rights come along with copyright and concern the photographer's right to be acknowledged as the creator of the work. There are four aspects to moral rights.
Moral rights can be waived with a signed agreement and can be treated separately from copyright.
Note Proving CopyrightWith a case of copyright infringement, ownership and date of creation must be proved.Although metadata is helpful, it can be faked and therefore has limited legal value. In significant situations, a copy of the work should be placed in a sealed envelope and posted to yourself by registered post, leaving it unopened when you receive it. This is a practice favoured by script writers and play writers. Another method is to leave copies with a solicitor or a private copyright registration agency Picture Licensing Universal System. Use of ImagesThere are occasions when normal copyright protection does not applied.
Licences with permission to use can be given to clients to use the images for specific purposes. For example, a licence to use an image in the USA only, for editorial and for two years.
The fee will depend on:-
When a painting is technically out of copyright because it was made 200 years ago, it still does not become open season. It is likely to be owned by a gallery, who will not allow photography on their premises. They will issue photographs of the painting so to copy them would involve infringing another photographer's copyright.
If an image is licensed to be used by a client for public relations promotions and then the client wants to use the image in an advertisement, it is necessary for a new agreement and fee to be negotiated with the photographer. Unauthorized use of the image for this extra purpose would be violation of copyright.
A client might be given exclusive rights over an image for a specific time, in which case the photographer cannot use the image for any other purpose for that period. Use of the image for self-promotion is usually excluded.
An exception to this is where a photographer works for an employer, rather than being commissioned on a freelance basis, then the copyright belongs to the employer. It can be a grey area when the employment is on a short-term basis. Who owns the copyright for different aspects of the works needs to be made clear at the start.
To a large extent, the law is on the side of the originator of the creative work. Copyright and the InternetWith modern technology and the ease of copying digital images, taking them from the internet means copyright infringement is common. All too often, people think that anything on the net is fair game and free.
Copying and downloading an image from the net is like any other form of copying and is illegal.
A watermark can be embedded on to the image, although this can make it awkward to the viewer to see the image clearly.
Digital watermarking embeds details of the copyright owner into the pixel information of the image. The Digimarc reader is built into Photoshop at the bottom of the Filter menu. The web can be trawled to seek out any illegal copies containing the embedded information. The Digimarc system aims to catch people later. It's an expensive system and someone could always steal an image with a digital watermark, then embed their own watermark and claim it as the original work. Proof can still be tricky. A familiar trick is for someone to search for an image on Google Images, find the source, then either download the image or simply link it to their own site. This scheme can be thwarted by not using an obvious name. Rather than name an image tigers.jpg, name it tgrs.jpg. You will still know what the image is, but it won't come up in a net search.
Ultimately, however, the only way to protect an image on the net is not to put that image on the net in the first place.
Dealing with ViolationsIf an existing client is found to infringe copyright by using an image for a purpose not covered by its licence, the first action should be to approach the client.Many clients are very ignorant about rights and copyright and might generally believe that after paying for a photographic job or image they have a right to use it freely. A clear explanation of the situation can soon clear up the matter and a new fee and licence agreed upon with a minimum of ill-feeling.
In other cases, when a violation of copyright is found, the first approach should be a polite but firm letter pointing out that the image is used without permission and should be withdrawn immediately; or at the very least a fee must be paid.
It's much better to be paid, of course, so set a reasonable price for that usage, then don't negotiate. You will have right on your side and a strong case.
With no satisfactory response, solicitor's letters can be used. Usually this is sufficient because most people do not want to get involved in long and expensive legal matters.
When the infringement occurs overseas, then there is a problem. Costs, language and legal differences very often make protracted action impossible. Unfortunately, most people have to grin and bare such thefts. Thefts via the net can be handled a little differently. An image might have been copied from another site, or an image supplied to a client for PR is plastered all over a site as a main advertisement.
The first thing to do is to take a screen-capture of the image, complete with computer date. That's your evidence. Then send a letter to the guilty party. If this is ignored, send the complaint to the web site's Internet Service Provider, to the web hosting company and also to the credit card processor. Complaints that they are assisting an infringement of copyright are likely to bring a positive result as they will not want to be caught in the middle of someone else's legal wrangle.
Useful ContactsUnited States Copyright OfficeA guide on US copyright law and how to register:- http://www.copyright.gov/
UK Intellectual Property Office
Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS)
United Kingdom Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
Design and Artists Copyright Society
Berne Convention
All governments have their own copyright offices
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There are ways to give a certain amount of protection to images on a web site. Java script codes can be included which will prevent downloading images. Unfortunately this can be easily circumvented by doing a screen capture.
