No copyright mark on website

Photos taken in a apublic place

[reddevil]

If i don't have a copyright mark on my website, and the photos I have on there are photos I took in a public place (eg. a beach), are the images still subject to copyright laws?

[crescenta]

If you took them (i.e. you were the photographer), then sure, they are yours. You own the copyright. The minute you create something, you own the copyright. You don't have to put a © notice on everything to have a copyright.

[rogerd]

It's not a bad idea to put copyright notices liberally around your photos and the rest of the site. Some web developers don't understand copyright law, and putting them on notice may help dissuade theft. Serious content thieves, of course, know what they are doing is wrong and won't be dissuaded by a mere copyright notice.

[reddevil]

OK thanks, so my copyright notices will be going on the bottom of every page.

[Liane]

Better yet, think about putting © Reddevil on each of your photos! That will help even more. Otherwise, if you want to get serious about it, watermark them.

I have a copyright notice on every page of my site ... it doesn't prevent theft at all! I am constantly trying to get webmasters to take my photos and maps off their sites. Heck, even Google is attributing my hand drawn map of the Caribbean to a thief who refuses to take it off their site despite 4 requests!

[Kirby]

>Heck, even Google is attributing my hand drawn map of the Caribbean to a thief who refuses to take it off their site despite 4 requests!

I have the same problem with maps we created. I wasnt diligent enough when they were first created, now the thief (who has deeper pockets than I do)is threatening me with lawsuits.

Now I add copyright info and watermark everything. As soon as Google caches the images, I document it so i can now prove that they originally sourced it to my site. Once I have that, I get it removed from their image archive and change the tag to noarchive. I do the same with archive.org.