I have a free account, and I was wondering if and how I could copyright the photos that I own (the ones I took, and uploaded). And, if I have a private account, can people somehow "steal" my pictures? (That's why I want to know about the copyright)

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The best way to copyright photos online is to use your photo program or editing program to put a watermark acorss the photo. The watermark should be the copyright emblem, a "c" in a circle, along with the year you makde the photo and your name. You superimpose this logo on any photo you put online. It states that it is copyrighted and also makes it of n use to anyone who would download it.

I think the only way to prevent your pictures from getting "stolen" on photobucket is to have a personal account, one that other people cant see. But if you do want other people to be able to see your work, id recommend flickr. You can copyright your pictures there.

You could simply add a watermark to the back or bottom of your images so that if people steal them you've at least got some way to track it. And then everyone who sees it will know it was yours...

Just by presenting the file for viewing online can someone steal it. If you are worried about that, upload a low resolution photo and/or watermark it. Also, you automatically have copyright if you took the photo, wrote a book, sang a song (except in cases where it was improvisational), et cetera. If you took the photos under contract for someone, they may have copyright, but assuming you were just going around happily snapping away, they're all yours. If anyone does steal them and you find out about it, you can press charges. Although I would read up on Photobucket's terms of service for uploading your images. You want to make sure that by uploading, you aren't relinquishing any rights. They need non-exclusive rights in order to display the images without risk to themselves, but you should retain copyright and they should not be able to make any commercial use of your images.

OK a couple of things. First of all the moment you capture the photograph in the US its copyrighted. The exception to this is if you are doing work for hire or if you have contractural agreement that transfers the copyright to another. You do not HAVE to do anything for it to be copurighted. Now protecting that copyright is something different and what most people who have answered are trying to help you with. Here are some stategies that are suggested 1) make the images for online presentations small files that way if someone hijacks them and tried to use them when they are enlarged for print they are too pixelated to use 2) Using layers in photoshop appy a watermark 3) You can register the copyright with the US copyright office ( but this does cost money 4) Include copyright data in your EXIF data file of the digital picture. Here is ASMPs page on copyright that may help http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/copyright/