Tonight I met with a group of photographers for a little discussion and get together. We talked about software, selling your photos, lighting, and how to copyright your photography. This group is a sub group of the photography club hat I belong to. Our goal is to have more time devoted to areas of interest that the members are interested in. This was the first of the meeting and I think that we had a good start.
The question that I have is how do you copyright your images? Do you register them with the government or just place a copyright on the photo as a watermark?
2Eight Photography 
I’ve never cared much for watermarks, but they do seem like the most failsafe way to copyright an image. Once an image is published though, isn’t it immediately under copyright of the person who published it? There isn’t really a good way of enforcing it but I think that legally that’s how it works–provided you put some sort of a copyright notice on your website.
Thanks for the comment. You are right in the fact that your photos are copyrighted, which actually takes place at the moment you take the photo. But what I’m interested in finding out is what else do other photographer do to protect their images. It’s an extensive topic and as I find more out I’ll post it for others to see.
It’s definitely an interesting topic–and sort of a fuzzy one, since a lot of people seem to be unsure of what does or doesn’t constitute copyright protection. I’ll be interested to see what you find out!
I was talking to one of my friends who send all of his photos to the copyright office to have an “official” copyright done twice a year. He said that you can send as many as you want and you only have to pay a single fee. This will be a subject for our meetings and I’ll be doing some research over the next few weeks. I’ll keep everyone posted.