Should I be doing this to my photos? I see it done a lot. I am NO pro or anything and have no desire to start a business. I didn't know if it was more of a photo safety issue or just something to be done for business purposes. ???
There is only one way to prevent people from stealing photos off the internet. Don't put them on the internet.
Here in the US prior to 1989 putting a copyright notice on works, © , or Copr., or Copyright - followed by the year of the first publication of the work and the name of the copyright holder, was part of United States copyright statutory requirements.
The use of copyright notices became optional after 1989 to claim copyright, because the international Berne Convention makes copyright automatic as soon as a work is recorded in a tangible medium, like as a data file on a camera memory card.
(Note: the symbol © can be typed by holding down the Alt key and typing 0169 on the keyboard number pad.)
However, the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management, or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works, and also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control,
whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself, again making the placement of a copyright statement an important part of protecting your intellectual property (your photographs). Today protecting your intellectual property includes adding copyright and contact information to the appropriate EXIF metadata fields in a photo. Today it is known as copyright Information management (CIM).
Many amateur photographers have discovered their photos have been stolen off the internets and being used commercially, without their knowledge, let alone their permission.
Copyright is a legal monopoly on an entire bundle of rights. You own your copyright for the rest of your life, plus 70 years after you die - unless you legally transfer the copyright to someone else. You can retain all your copyrights, yet license the use of your photo(s) to others for a fee.
It gets a bit more complicated.
If you want to sue someone for copyright infringement, because copyright is federal law, you have to file the suit in federal court, not a state court. Federal court rules requires your copyright be registered (or be in the process of being registered) with the US Copyright Office before they will accept the suit. Once your copyright(s) are registered you get a certificate with your official registration number.
That registration number is also needed for an effective DCMA take-down notice, or even an effective Cease and Desist (C&D) letter.
Remember those amateurs that discover someone is infringing their copyright? Unless they register their copyright(s), there is not much they can do about it.
