How to change copyright info to 2017 in your camera, blog and website!

How to change copyright info

Remember to change copyright info to include the new year in your copyright notices today. A legal copyright notice requires 3 elements:

1. The © symbol and the year the image of creation

   The correct copyright symbol is © and that’s not (C). On a Mac you can insert it by pressing <OPT> + <g>. The HTML for the symbol is <&copy;> and in ASCCI it’s <ALT>+<0169>.

   Just in case you haven’t noticed it’s 2017. Happy New Year.

2. Your credit line

   In my case that reads: Photography by Depuhl

3. All rights reserved.

This is information I learned at an ASMP symposium on copyright. Your copyright notice should read:

© 2017 Photography by Depuhl. All rights reserved.

Change it today.

Take a few minutes to change your © notices today. Start with your website and blog, if you’re using footers – as many of us do – make sure they get changed. Also, don’t forget to change the metadata settings in Bridge or any software you’re using to tag images. If you’re using a watermark on the images you post online (read here why you should), don’t forget to change the notice in your watermarking app as well. Most importantly you need to change the metadata inside your camera to show the new year in your change copyright info.

How to change copyright info on your website

I use PhotoShelter for my website and have a copyright notice in the footer code. Log into your personal account and go to …

Website -> general settings -> footer code

Add this script to your copyright notice:

© 2008-
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> 
var today = new Date() 
var year = today.getFullYear() 
document.write(year) 
</script>

Now you never have to change the date manually again :)

How to change copyright info on your blog

In WordPress, check your theme, if you’re running one. In my theme, the code in the footer can be changed in …

Appearances -> ‘Theme’ Options -> Other Graphical Elements -> Footer 

HT @BrendanShick for pointing out that you don’t have to hard code the year when you change copyright info anymore (like I did until 2015) – this is even better – instead of having to change the date into your blog and website every year by hand,  Brendan suggests the following PHP snippet:

“&copy; <?php echo date(“Y”) ?> [YOUR ATTRIBUTION HERE]“

Where YOUR ATTRIBUTION HERE would be the name of the copyright holder. Although this did not work on my sites, it made me do a little digging and this script works like a charm:

<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript”>
var today = new Date()
var year = today.getFullYear()
document.write(year)
</script>

Thanks for pointing this out Brendan!

How to change copyright info in Image tagging software

In Adobe Bridge, you’ll need to change the copyright notice in your Metadata templates. Go to …

Tools -> edit metadata template -> scroll to the template you need to change -> scroll to ‘copyright notice’

How to change copyright info in your image processing software

Capture One (the best RAW processing software on the planet #EndOfAd :) will pull the copyright info from your camera into their metadata field, however if for some reason you need to add it by hand just go to the INFO tab in the software – so if you change copyright info in your camera, you don’t need to do this, but it’s always nice to know where the copyright notice lives.

Scroll down to the IPTC section in the tools column and change your copyright notice there.

If you are importing from a Card, then Capture One will remember your last copyright notice in the import window. Change the date here as well.

How to change copyright info in your Camera:

Last but certainly not least, you want to change copyright info in your camera, which sometimes is a little tricky.

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