Change your copyright message

I suppose that in theory it puts some sort of date stamp in the MetaData. Then again, the time and date is part of that anyway! Copyright notices and watermarks used to be dated as a matter of course and in law, copyright is automatic and doesn't depend on any physical expression. EXIF etc is all too easily stripped out too, so a physical watermark across the image isn't a bad idea, even if it does ruin the photograph. Discrete watermarks may be less obtrusive but would be far easier for "unauthorised" users to remove...
 
Copyright is automatically asserted and attributed to the artist, but your Moral Rights are not. They have to be asserted by including the words All Moral Rights Asserted. They don't have to be on the image... they can be in the Metadata, or on the back of the print, or just on the website in the form of All Moral Rights Asserted for All Work etc.

Your Moral Rights are your right to attribution and not having your work altered without your expressed permission.

No one seems to know, or care about Moral rights though for some reason.
 
There was misinformation all over the internet a few years ago that a copyright notice without a date was worthless. I suppose it was based on the timebound nature of copyright, but I don't think this was ever tested in law, and there's certainly not much evidence that most people still believe it.
 
Because an image doesn't have a copyright symbol or date on it does not mean the image isn't protected. If it's your image it's your property, no amount of plastering C symbols over it will change that, it only serves as a useful indication to others.
 
So is there any legal basis to the date thing? I've always wondered it simply because I was always under the impression that copyright remained in force until a certain date post the artists death, and as such the date or year of creation has no baring on copyright?
 
I believe the limitation on copyright its around 50 (not too sure though) years regardless if the artist is alive or dead but this can be reasserted by the artist or their family. It helps to protect the artists revenue from the document. A copyright notice shows who the image belongs to but its absence does not mean it isn't copyrighted. You took the image, you own it. You should keep the originals as proof though as the image can be edited by anyone.

A more important and effective message would be 'No reproduction without permission' or something along those lines. This asserts your ownership over the image.

Keeping the originals of your image (unedited) is important if you need to prove you own the image and this is the only surefire way of keeping copyright.

If you are submitting work to an official archive, a date is required. You can use www.copyright.co.uk for this but you have to pay for it.
 
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More info here:

http://copyright.co.uk/legal-copyright-law.html

Particularly this:

-the original creation has an automatic right, the copyright, by the mere fact of its existence (if the work is original, the author’s copyright is born on the creation, with no formality).
 
The date was required by US law* as part of a legal copyright notice for works to receive copyright protection prior to their signing of the Berne Convention in 1989.



There's also some other provisions of US law which give longer terms of copyright protection for works created after 1978, for which purpose it may be advisable still to place a date upon the copyright notice.

It is also cited in the advice given by the UK Intellectual Property Office

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-essential.pdf

To help protect your copyright work, it is advisable to mark it with the © symbol, the name
of the copyright owner and the year in which the work was created. Although this is not
essential in the UK, it will let others know when the term of protection started and it should
then be possible to calculate whether it has ended or not. It will also indicate who the
owner was at that time in case it is then necessary to approach them should you need to
ask permission to use the work.
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edit:

* Title 17 of the United States Code, which governs US Copyright law.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/401

US Law said:
(a) General Provisions.— Whenever a work protected under this title is published in the United States or elsewhere by authority of the copyright owner, a notice of copyright as provided by this section may be placed on publicly distributed copies from which the work can be visually perceived, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

(b) Form of Notice.— If a notice appears on the copies, it shall consist of the following three elements:

(1) the symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word “Copyright”, or the abbreviation “Copr.”; and
(2) the year of first publication of the work; in the case of compilations, or derivative works incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying text matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful articles; and
(3) the name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner.
​

(c) Position of Notice.— The notice shall be affixed to the copies in such manner and location as to give reasonable notice of the claim of copyright. The Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation, as examples, specific methods of affixation and positions of the notice on various types of works that will satisfy this requirement, but these specifications shall not be considered exhaustive.

(d) Evidentiary Weight of Notice.— If a notice of copyright in the form and position specified by this section appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant in a copyright infringement suit had access, then no weight shall be given to such a defendant’s interposition of a defense based on innocent infringement in mitigation of actual or statutory damages, except as provided in the last sentence of section 504 (c)(2).
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N.B. The presence of a properly formed copyright notice still brings advantages in US courts in reducing the defences available for infringement and increased damages.
 
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