Copyrighted 
Two different questions
Photo metadata answers two questions that are easy to mix up:
- Who made this image? That is the creator: the photographer, or the illustrator for a drawing.
- Who owns the copyright? That is the rights holder, named in the copyright notice.
For most people with their own camera, the answer to both is the same name. The fields exist separately because the answers can differ, and when they do, both need to be right.
Getting them mixed up has practical effects. An editor may credit the owner as photographer, or ask the photographer for permission that only the owner can give. Filling each field with the right name avoids both.
When creator and owner differ
Ownership depends on the law where the work was made and on any contracts involved. Common situations where the owner isn't the photographer include:
- a staff photographer whose employer owns work made on the job in many countries;
- a commission where the contract assigns the copyright to the client;
- rights sold or transferred to an agency or a publisher;
- a photographer's estate, after their death.
In each case the photographer is still the creator. Only the owner changes. If you aren't sure who owns a particular photo, the contract is the place to look, and a lawyer where you live can tell you what it means.
The creator fields
Each metadata layer has its own creator field:
- EXIF Artist (
0x013B): plain text naming the camera owner, photographer or image creator. Cameras with a copyright menu write it. - IPTC By-line (2:80): the creator's name, up to 32 bytes per entry. It is repeatable, so two photographers are two entries. 2:85, By-line Title, can hold a job title such as Staff Photographer.
- XMP dc:creator: an ordered list of names, the IPTC Core Creator. IPTC Core also offers the creator's contact details, such as email address and website.
Write the name you want to be known by as an author, the same way in all three.
The owner fields
The owner is named mostly through the copyright notice, in EXIF Copyright, IPTC 2:116 and XMP dc:rights. XMP also has two fields that name the owner directly:
xmpRights:Owner: a list of the owners' names;plus:CopyrightOwner: a structured record from the IPTC Extension, with a name and an identifier.
The Credit Line is a third thing again: how a publisher should credit the image in print. It may name the photographer, the agency, or both.
In practice most readers show the notice and the creator, and fewer show the owner fields. That makes the notice the one to get right first.
How software reads the difference
Software that has to decide whose photo it is usually looks at the notice first, because that is the owner's statement. When a photo has a creator and no notice, the creator is the best clue left, and many tools fall back to it.
Copyrighted works this way. A Rights Profile holds the notice, the creator and the owner as separate entries, and the app writes each to its own fields. When it groups your photos, a photo matches you when its notice matches your profile in any year, or when it has no notice and names your profile's creator. You can see what any file says in each layer with the copyright checker.
Contact details, and what to leave out
IPTC Core adds a structured field for the creator's contact details, Iptc4xmpCore:CreatorContactInfo, with parts for address, city, country, email, phone and website. It helps an editor who wants to license a photo find you quickly.
Remember that these details travel with every copy of the photo, to anyone who opens it. A work email address and a website are usually enough. A home address or a personal phone number rarely belongs in a file you publish.
The same applies to By-line Title (2:85). Staff Photographer, Harbour Press is useful context for a newsroom, and it says who employs you to everyone else who reads it.
Filling them in for common cases
- Your own work: your name as creator,
© 2026 Your Nameas the notice. - Work for a client who owns it: your name as creator, the client's name in the notice and owner fields.
- A studio with several photographers: each photographer as creator on their own images, the studio in the notice if the studio holds the rights.
Keeping these straight is also courteous. It tells an editor whom to credit and whom to ask for permission, and those may be two different people.
Questions
Is the By-line the copyright owner?
No. IPTC 2:80 By-line names the creator, usually the photographer. The owner is named in the copyright notice (2:116) and, in XMP, in the owner fields. They are often the same person, but not always.
Can a photo have more than one creator?
Yes. IPTC 2:80 is repeatable and XMP dc:creator is an ordered list, so each creator gets an entry. EXIF Artist is a single text field, so several names share one line there.
Who owns a photo taken for an employer?
It depends on the law where you work and on your contract. In many countries an employer owns work made as part of the job. For your own situation, ask a lawyer where you live.
