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Library module Update Copyright questions

Joseph McCarty

New Member
Premium Classic Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2021
Messages
4
Lightroom Version Number
14.0.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
My Lightroom photos are in 20 years, 2005-2025. The number for the total photos, 19,000.

How to have Copyright for each of the years? Do I need to start with 2005, and do it for all 19 years?

Thanks,
Joseph McCarty
 
My Lightroom photos are in 20 years, 2005-2025. The number for the total photos, 19,000.

How to have Copyright for each of the years? Do I need to start with 2005, and do it for all 19 years?

Thanks,
Joseph McCarty

You could do that or you could use the date published.

For example you set the Copyright date for the current year and whenever you export (publish) an image, the exported derivative will get the current year copyright date. If you republished the same image next year, it would have the copyright date for that year published.

If you set the copyright date in the camera then that is the copyright on the original digital image even if you never publish it


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Here's my understanding. Copyright protection occurs the instant you press the shutter button, regardless of anything you do or don't put in the metadata or watermark you place on the image itself.

The only thing that changes the value of your copyright in the case of infringement is whether or not you registered the image with the US copyright office. I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but from some seminars I've attended I've learned a few things.

1) If the image is not registered with the copyright office, then your maximum award if it's infringed is limited to actual losses you incured due to the infringement and I don't believe this can include legal fees. So, for example, if you've sold other images of a similar quality and resouliton for $100, then that's your actual loss and is also the maximum recoverable damages even the the outfit that stole the image from you made millions off of your image. And no lawyer will take your case for such small amounts.

2) On the other hand, if the image had been registered prior to the infringement then you can claim "statutory damages" up to $30,000 for an individual work or $150,000 for willful infringement of an individual work and the claim amount can include legal fees. For example, if you see your image on a billboard advertising some product, your claim can be based on a the increased sales income of that product resulting from that advertisment campaign plus legal fees.

In neither case does information you added to the image in metaddata or placed on the image itself as a water mark change your legal protection. However, if the image is clearly marked as copyrighted, then it's easier to prove "wilfull infringement" but if the culprit knew, or should have known it was nott their image and they had no license from the copyright holder (you) to use that image and could have reasonably figured out how to contact you to obtain such a license then the fact the there was no Copyright text on or with the image is not relvent.
 
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Note that the copyright doesn't exists everywhere in the word. In France, for example, there is no such thing like copyright. In fact, anything you create yourself (music, image, sculpture, clothes, etc) are protected by default, as long as you can prove to be the creator and that it's "original" (ie not already seen somewhere else)
 
Note that the copyright doesn't exists everywhere in the word.
But it does exist and where it exists it can be useful if litigation is necessary.

The EXIF standards reserve fields for Copyright irrespective of the country of the consumer.
 
But it does exist and where it exists it can be useful if litigation is necessary.
Agreed.
I just wanted to inform that in some country like in France, Copyright has no legal value. (And a lot of people in France think it does).
However, I agree with you that using the Copyright field in the metadata (as I do) might be useful in any case to indicate who owns the legal rights on the image.
 
It can certainly help 'prove' that the infringer 'knew' or 'should have known' who owned the image and how to contact them if a) you can get your hands on the actual file they used, and b) the metadata was not cleared from that file. Many infringed images are grabbed from social media sites or other image posting web sites and many of those strip metadata when the images are uploaded to the site (presumably by you).

What it doesn't change is how much damages you can claim. Only Copyright Office registration can do that.
 
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