Copyrighted 
A standard copyright notice for a photo has three parts: the © symbol (or the word “Copyright”), a year, and the name of the owner, as in © 2026 Jane Doe. Many photographers add “All rights reserved.” at the end. In photo metadata the full notice goes in the Copyright Notice field of every layer: EXIF Copyright, IPTC 2:116 and XMP dc:rights. The photographer’s name on its own goes in the Creator field. This article explains each part of the notice, how to write ranges of years, which field each piece belongs in, and a few encoding details that trip people up. It is general information, and it is not legal advice.
The three parts of a notice
The symbol
The © symbol is the usual choice. The word “Copyright” works as a label too, and some people write both: Copyright © 2026 Jane Doe. That repeats itself, but it is common and harmless. Pick one style and use it on every photo.
The year
United States law describes a formal notice with three elements: the symbol or word, the year of first publication, and the owner’s name. Photographers often use the year the photo was taken instead, because many photos are never formally published and the capture date is easy to find. Whichever you choose, choose on purpose and apply it the same way across your archive.
A common mistake in bulk edits is the wrong year. If you stamp an old archive today with a fixed text, every photo from 2014 ends up saying 2026. A better approach fills the year from each photo’s own capture date.
The name
The name is the copyright owner, which is not always the person who pressed the shutter. For work made for an employer or under some contracts, the owner may be a company. Use the owner’s name in the notice and the photographer’s name in the Creator field. Creator vs copyright owner covers this in more detail.
“All rights reserved” and other additions
“All rights reserved” is a customary phrase. Many photographers add it as a plain statement that they have not given permission for other uses. It is optional. Under the Berne Convention, copyright in member countries does not depend on a notice at all, so neither the notice nor the phrase is what creates your rights. What a notice does is tell people who to ask. For more on that, read does metadata protect copyright?
Keep other information out of the notice. Licensing terms belong in Usage Terms. A link to your website belongs in the Web Statement of Rights. A notice full of extras gets cut short in fields with length limits, and it is harder to read.
Multiple years
A single photo usually needs one year. Ranges and lists make sense in a few cases:
- A range, such as
© 2019–2026 Jane Doe, for a work revised over several years, or for a website or portfolio as a whole. - A list, such as
© 2019, 2023 Jane Doe, for a work with distinct versions published in separate years. - A composite image built from photos taken in different years may use a range or the year the composite was made.
Avoid putting a range on every photo in an archive just to cover everything. It makes each notice less accurate, and it defeats the point of recording a year at all.
What goes in which field
Copyright information is spread across three metadata standards, and each has more than one relevant field. A tidy file looks like this:
- Copyright Notice: the full notice,
© 2026 Jane Doe. All rights reserved.Written to EXIF Copyright (0x8298), IPTC IIM 2:116 and XMPdc:rights. - Creator: the photographer’s name only,
Jane Doe. Written to EXIF Artist (0x013B), IPTC IIM 2:80 By-line and XMPdc:creator. - Credit Line: the credit to print next to the photo, without the © symbol,
Jane Doe Photography. Written to IPTC IIM 2:110 and XMPphotoshop:Credit. - Copyright Status: XMP
xmpRights:Markedset to True for a copyrighted photo. - Web Statement of Rights and Usage Terms: XMP
xmpRights:WebStatementfor a link andxmpRights:UsageTermsfor plain text.
The same notice should appear in all three layers. If EXIF says one thing and XMP another, different programs show different owners. See the EXIF Copyright tag and the IPTC Copyright Notice for each field’s rules.
Encoding and length details
The © symbol in EXIF
The EXIF Copyright tag was originally defined as ASCII text, and © is not an ASCII character. Many programs write it anyway, and many readers display it. Some older software shows it as stray characters. EXIF 3.0 added a UTF-8 text type. If you need to reach very old tools, the word “Copyright” avoids the question.
Two notices in one EXIF tag
The EXIF standard lets the Copyright tag hold two notices, one for the photographer and one for an editor, separated by a null character. Not every reader shows the second part. For most photographers, one notice is enough.
Length limits in IPTC IIM
IPTC IIM limits the Copyright Notice to 128 bytes and the Credit and By-line fields to 32 bytes each. In UTF-8 the © symbol takes two bytes. XMP has no such limits, but a notice that fits IIM will fit everywhere.
Applying one format to every photo
The hard part is consistency across thousands of files. Copyrighted keeps your notice in a profile as a template, such as © {year} Jane Doe. All rights reserved., where {year} becomes each photo’s capture year. Applying the profile writes the notice to EXIF, IPTC and XMP together, along with your creator, credit line and other fields, without re-encoding the image. Every batch can be undone. It runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac, on the device. To check a single file’s notice in every layer, use the free copyright checker, which reads the photo in your browser and uploads nothing.
Checklist
- Write the notice as symbol, year, owner:
© 2026 Jane Doe. - Add “All rights reserved.” if you like; it is optional.
- Take the year from each photo, and do not stamp today’s year on old work.
- Use a range or list of years only when the work spans them.
- Put the owner in the notice and the photographer in Creator.
- Keep the © symbol out of the Credit Line.
- Write the same notice to EXIF, IPTC and XMP.
- Keep the notice within 128 bytes, and put links and terms in their own fields.
