How To Add A Copyright In Capture One Pro – In Depth Review

Copyright information is important for photographers. However, it’s easy to be confused : photo editing softwares have their own way to deal with copyrights. That’s the reason why I spent some time working to clarify how to add a copyright in Capture One Pro.

This article describes in detail copyright information in Capture One Pro, what’s in the software and what’s missing for the new Google Image Licence feature. We’ll also describe a workaround for this.

I will describe how I insert copyright information with my own equipment :

• Fujifilm cameras : X-T2 and X100F
• Capture One Pro as photo edition software

Here are the head chapters of this article :

What is Copyright ?

Copyright saved in Metadata

Copyright and ownership Metadata in Capture One Pro

Zoom in Google Image License Metadata

My Copyright Metadata : a practical example

How to set Metadata “Web Statement of Rights” and “Licensor URL” ?

Conclusion

What is Copyright ?

Copyright is the exclusive right given to the creator of a creative work such as a photography to reproduce the work, usually for a limited time.

Some countries require certain copyright formalities, such as copyright registration, copyright renewal, copyright notice and copyright deposit to establishing copyright. Other countries recognize copyright in any completed work, without formal registration.

I will not extend in this legal topic, because I am not a lawyer.

So if I summarize, copyright is a complex topic, and the least I can do is try to let information in the image that I am the author.

So here is my personal behavior to protect my photography work :

• I always keep my original files in order to be able to prove that I’m the author of a picture.
• I fill all metadata related to copyright, author or licensing that is available.
• I always publish images with my name in the filename of the picture.

That being said, I’m aware, that a lot much could be done.

Copyright saved in Metadata

Copyright information are created during the life of an image :

• as internal metadata in my Fujifilm camera (Exif), and in Capture One (Exif, IPTC and XMP).
• as external metadata with Structured Data in the HTML page embedding the image (Google’s Image license metadata feature).

I wrote another post about the Photographer’s Metadata Survival Guide, where I digged into metadata.

Let’s focus on Capture One and internal metadata.

Copyright and ownership Metadata in Capture One Pro

Exit, IPTC and XMP metadata is a very large set of property.

You may refer to the IPTC Photo Metadata Standard 2019.1 if you wish precise definitions for each metadata property.

Every software, Capture One included, only chose to handle a subset of the available list.

That’s the reason why I started to make a list of the metadata addressed in Capture One. And from this list, I selected a subset of metadata properties metadata that are directly related to Copyright and Copyright Notices, or describe the author of the photo.

In order to create this big list, I filled each available field in Capture One > Metadata.

I then exported the image as a JPEG and listed all metadata with exiftool.

Exiftool gave me a text result file which display all XMP, IPTC or XMP metadata properties of this image.

Excerpt of exiftool’s result :

By-line                         : [IPTC - Contact] Creator
By-line Title                   : [IPTC - Contact] Creator's Job T
City                            : [IPTC - Image] City
Sub-location                    : [IPTC - Image] Location
Province-State                  : [IPTC - Image]

The following link if the entire exiftool’s result file :

In this exiftool’s result, I selected only metadata that are directly related to Copyright and Copyright Notices, or describe the author of the photo. I made a correspondance with EXIF, IPTC and XMP metadata properties in the following table.

As you can see, Capture One allows you to fill the three main copyright parameters :

• [IPTC – Contact] Creator
• [IPTC – Status] Copyright Notice
• [IPTC – Status] Rights usage terms

Google Image License Metadata

Google introduced a new feature that will sometimes provide a link to the owner of an image. This new feature is named Image License Metadata.

However, this feature is still in beta test and requirements and guidelines may change.

If you want to enable Google to display in a near future enhanced licensing information about your image, either you fill the 2 following IPTC metadata properties in your image file, or you create an XMP structured data providing these information in the file embedding your image.

My Copyright Metadata : a practical example

Here is a link to a table where I list the metadata related to Copyrights and Authorship in Exif, IPTC and XMP, link them to their Capture One and Photoshop equivalent, and give my settings as an freelance photographer as an example.

A Metadata Copyright Example for a Freelance Photographer.

How to set Metadata “Web Statement of Rights” and “Licensor URL” ?

Capture One does not allow you to fill there two parameters yet. I filled a feature request.

Here is an step-by-step tutorial on how to set Licensor and WebStatement for Google License in Capture One.

Photoshop CC (and thus Bridge CC) recognize both LicensorURL and WebStatement and allow you to set these metadata.

Conclusion

We reached the end of this post when I wanted to share with you how to add a copyright with Capture One Pro.

I thank you for your visit.

If you wish more information related to metadata and Capture One Pro, you could read two other articles on this blog :

• 7 Ways To Edit Metadata in Capture One Pro
• The Photographer’s Metadata Survival Guide