Using My Copyrighted Pictures on Web Site

[tar123]

I copyrighted my book of pictures, and now I want to put some of them on my web site. So what kind of legal mumbo-jumbo do I have to put at the bottom of the site, to let people know the pictures are copyrighted? Thanks!

[flyingron]

Your book was copyrighted as soon as it was set down. The photos were copyrighted as soon as you took them.
You can use whatever scare words you want but none is strictly required by statue,

If you look at the bottom of this page, you'll see:

Copyright © 2004 - 2011 ExpertLaw.com, All Rights Reserved

Which should do you nicely. Change ExpertLaw.com to your name and set the year to when the pictures were taken.

[tar123]

Neat, alright thanks.

[KeyWestDan]

We assume you have actually filed your book, fee and copyright paperwork with the copyright office.

If you are using them on a website and they are any good, I would also use a good program to embed a watermark and ownership information. I would also crop them so nobody but you has the full photograph and only use them at standard web resolution.

[DavidForthoffer]

Flyingron is correct in everything he said.

However, you might want to consider registering your copyrighted works.

If someone illegally copies your un-registered copyrighted works, it is pretty hard to collect damages, since you are only allowed to collect actual damages, which you would have to prove.

If someone illegally copies you registered copyrighted works, you would be entitled to statutory damages, which could be tens of thousands of dollars.

You can register online, at the U.S. Copyright Office.