Metadata is a must!

[Sonny]

WOW just WOW!

I am reading an article in this months issue of After Capture. I encourage you to read it. It talks about adding metadata to all your photos. Reason being...the 'Orphan Works' pending law.

What an eye opener. I've been totally oblivious...til now! Here are a few article.

http://orphanworks.blogspot.com/

http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphaned_work

[ndsimm]

Yeah I read that last night too and was gonna post about it. Bridge makes it real easy to append metadata to all the RAW images and Capture NX does a great job as well. I'll admit, on most of my ealrier work, I hadn't cocnsidered, but EVERYTHING I upload now has at least the basic info.
too bad PSCS save for web function strips it out, but I don't use that function much myself
and while there are some image theives that can remove it, you still have the original file with the original info....

[rott]

That's rough. You can use a photo if the copyright holder cannot be found after a "reasonable search"? What does "reasonable search" mean, really? What if you've moved a couple of times, so the EXIF data in your images are old. How would they find you?

So long as your website is up to date with contact info, I suppose those images would be ok, even if their EXIF was stale, but what about something I downloaded for personal use at some point, and now want to use it for a billboard? Well it's been sitting on my computer for a couple of years, while the copyright holder moved a few times, and poof, rights granted. <sarcasm>Super.</sarcasm>

[zepp]

Take the time and write your congressperson and express your views on the proposal. I did when I saw light of this issue over a year ago.

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Frank

[janetg]

k, how does this work for a second shooter you have hired? do you input YOUR information? or theirs?

thanks for the replies

janetg

[ndsimm]

I know it varies between photographers, but since I allow my seconds to keep their images (since they did shoot them), I would think that their copyright info should be in the Metadata
I've always thought that the copyright belonged to the original shooter

[zepp]

Originally Posted by janetg

k, how does this work for a second shooter you have hired? do you input YOUR information? or theirs?

thanks for the replies

janetg

What terms did your contract with the hired shooter state? If they agreed to "Work For Hire" then the copyright of the images is yours and the images would be treated as if you took them originally. If you had different terms with them and they retain the copyright then the images would be treated as theirs.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

[janetg]

so - let's say...you hired - work for hire - you process everything - copyright goes to you.

as nathan said though - he allows shooters to keep their images - but do you process them or do they? if you were processing, would you go to the trouble to make sure their information is in there?