Copyright and digital images.

[Billy_wiz]

I started in film photography, and if you had the negative and copyrighted © with your name, everything appeared to be ok.

Unsure with digital images how they are © protected. As there is no proof I took the image i.e. no negative.

What is the best way of copyrighting photo's, without going into too much expense? In sure this has been asked before, but information, techniques are changing so fast.

 

[Gav.]

Copyright is yours the moment you press the shutter button.

This may help.

How copyright protects your work

Who gets copyright, types of work it covers, permitted use of copyright material, how to license and sell copyright and help resolving disputes.

www.gov.uk

Copyright notice: digital images, photographs and the internet

www.gov.uk

Edit to add, you could set your details in your camera so each RAW/JPEG has your name/company embedded in the details from capture.

 

[Bristolian]

Your original file, straight out of the camera, is your negative. This is your proof that you took the image so any post processing should be carried out on a copy of that file, rather than the original.

As @Gav. said above, you can add a copyright message into most cameras which gets embedded into the file. For example, my copyright message is simply "Copyright Steve Goodfellow, 2025"

 

[DemiLion]

Copyright is yours the moment you press the shutter button.

Not entirely true but decent enough as a general premise.

The copyright belongs to the author of the work (or directing mind) except in cases of employment.

That isn't always the person that triggers the shutter.

 

[Phil V]

I started in film photography, and if you had the negative and copyrighted © with your name, everything appeared to be ok.

If you had understood the ‘why’ rather than just following the ‘how’, you’d see you have exactly the same in the digital world.

Copyright belongs to the author (almost) automatically. You never had to mark your work with the symbol, though sometimes it can help when you’re managing reproduction rights. And your holding of the negative proved nothing but it helped create a body of evidence.

The fact you have an original file within a numbered sequence is the same ‘body of evidence’ as a strip of negatives.

And as a tool for rights management, embedding copyright info in your files when they’re recorded is much more effective than simply adding the symbol later. Anyone with a copy of your digital file can see that you took it and have information to get in touch with you for permission to reuse.

 

[DemiLion]

I started in film photography, and if you had the negative and copyrighted © with your name, everything appeared to be ok.

Unsure with digital images how they are © protected. As there is no proof I took the image i.e. no negative.

What is the best way of copyrighting photo's, without going into too much expense? In sure this has been asked before, but information, techniques are changing so fast.

Don't worry.

No need to reply to the thread and thank those that have taken their time to provide you with an answer.

None at all.

 

[Billy_wiz]

Thank you for all your replies.

Accept my apologies for the late reply, due to a recent family bereavement.