Making copyright depend on other data during import

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tspear

tspear

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As I remind myself to update the copyright meta-data preset, I am now wondering why Adobe has never implemented any variable substitution on import.
Is this a feature others would use? Should I put in a feature request? I would be rather nice to have the copyright metadata set based on capture date. I would also like the ability to set keywords on import also.
 
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I imagine you mean something like including the year in the copyright field? A whole range of tasks like this could be useful to some people, but I don't see much likelihood of Adobe implementing them. They're more the kind of thing they leave to plugins.
 
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Yes, Conditionals would be useful in LR (IF this, THEN that). The only place that I have seen Conditionals employed is in a Jeffrey Freidl Plugin in. So to John I ask, Could you write an Import Plugin?
 
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It depends what Import plugin means, Cletus. We can already write a plugin that completely replaces the Import dialog and which offers whatever conditionality we want. But I'm not sure it's a great idea to replace the built-in Import feature. What I mean by an Import plugin is a plugin that is triggered by the existing Import/Folder Sync, running certain functions after Lr has finished importing photos. We have asked for this trigger capability, more than once....
 
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John,

Is there an existing feature request I can vote for? I can then provide some examples...
 
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Not that I know of, Tim. I should have said we've asked directly.
 
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I will think on how to word it, but I will try and put one together this weekend.
Goal is to accomplish dynamic presets, but this would be a slick hook for plugins.
 
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"Tokens" is one term that may be understood. So a metadata preset might have the copyright field set to © {yyyy} {creator}, for example.
 
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Conditionals and tokens for metadata on import would be very useful...but maybe not always for copyright presets.

My understanding of U.S copyright law (I am not a lawyer) is that the date on a copyright notice needs to be the date of publication, not the date of creation. While the date of creation does need to be recorded, it already is by the EXIF Creation Date. In most cases, entire cards of images being imported into Lightroom have not been published yet, so you probably don't want to automatically add the current year to the copyright notices for those images. Unless you're sure all of those images are going to be published the same year they're imported.

My import preset does add a copyright notice, but without the year, so it doesn't need to change. I only add the year to the copyright notices of images that have actually been published.
 
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johnbeardy said:
"Tokens" is one term that may be understood. So a metadata preset might have the copyright field set to © {yyyy} {creator}, for example.
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I've seen the terms "macro" and "macro variable." Is that another way of describing what this thread is driving at?

Phil
 
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Conrad Chavez said:
Conditionals and tokens for metadata on import would be very useful...but maybe not always for copyright presets.

My understanding of U.S copyright law (I am not a lawyer) is that the date on a copyright notice needs to be the date of publication, not the date of creation. While the date of creation does need to be recorded, it already is by the EXIF Creation Date. In most cases, entire cards of images being imported into Lightroom have not been published yet, so you probably don't want to automatically add the current year to the copyright notices for those images. Unless you're sure all of those images are going to be published the same year they're imported.

My import preset does add a copyright notice, but without the year, so it doesn't need to change. I only add the year to the copyright notices of images that have actually been published.
Click to expand...

My understanding is not the same. Here is a summary by the US Govt: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
The second paragraph applies, and digital mediums apply.
From what I have read previously, companies have encouraged the use the of the published in printed media as the official date. The idea is that you want it to last as long as possible.
For me, I am not concerned about making money from it (would be nice, but not why I do it) or my grandkids getting to keep the copyrights an extra few months (or even years). So, I set the value on import and hope for the best. For me, it is more about trying to protect my privacy, and having the notice on there at least gives me a shot at stopping someone from abusing the images.

Note: I am also not a lawyer, and I did not sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.
 
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I am with Tim here.
It is pretty clear that it is entirely appropriate, and legally enforceable, to copyright an image as soon after its creation as possible.

Tony Jay
 
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What I've read from Ed Greenburg, JD, whom specializes in Copyright laws in New York, the concern is when you register with the copyright office. If you're images are not registered, it's much more difficult to enforce, and that is based on Published vs unpublished. Greenburg claims that the mere act of uploading to social media, any form, is considered published. So therefore it's a longer process for the copyright office to grant that protection. Has little to do with the actual date of creation. He just recommends that before you share, register.
 
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frozenframe said:
What I've read from Ed Greenburg, JD, whom specializes in Copyright laws in New York, the concern is when you register with the copyright office. If you're images are not registered, it's much more difficult to enforce, and that is based on Published vs unpublished. Greenburg claims that the mere act of uploading to social media, any form, is considered published. So therefore it's a longer process for the copyright office to grant that protection. Has little to do with the actual date of creation. He just recommends that before you share, register.
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Hi Ron - nice summary of the copyright situation as it pertains in the USA.
In other countries there is stronger statutory protection than in the USA.
In Australia where I currently reside there is no need to register an image that is already copyrighted.
Australian jurisprudence will take a very dim view of anyone using a copyrighted image without permission.
Of course the situation becomes rather more fluid when any case crosses international borders.

Tony Jay
 
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I'm very familiar with Ed Greenberg and Jack Reznicki's work. In fact I have in front of me here a copy of their book "The Photographer's Survival Manual, A Legal Guide for Photographers in the Digital Age," and I've seen them speak.

tspear posted a link to a PDF titled "Duration of Copyright." That doesn't actually talk about posted copyright notices, only about how long the copyright lasts. The correct PDF is "Copyright Notice"
https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf

...which says on the second page, under Form of Notice, that the date on a notice should be "The year of first publication." Not creation.

We have to be careful here. There are three different copyright dates that this thread is talking about as if they have the same implications. They do not.

Date of creation: When the image was created. That is recorded by Camera EXIF. Your copyright of your image starts here, but that doesn't really affect the copyright notice or legal actions (see below). The only importance of this date is when it runs out, which is after we're dead, so we move on to the next two dates which have more immediate importance.

Date of publication: When the image was published. This is the year that goes on the copyright notice. If you're posting the image right away, then it's the same as the date of creation, but in many cases the date of publication could be a different year. Because this is the date that the Copyright Office says should be in the copyright notice, it probably should not be automatically bulk-tagged in Lightroom using the Date of Creation unless that really is the year you published every image on that card.

Date of registration: When the image was registered in with the US Copyright Office. Of course, this could be different than the first two dates, although the year might be the same. This date, along with the publication date, are what matter the most if you bring legal action against an infringer, because your lawyer needs to prove that registration occurred before infringement. This date does not go on the copyright notice.

So while we can all agree that we need to have accurate records of the date of creation and registration, we should keep in mind that those two dates are not the ones that go on the copyright notice. It is the date of publication that goes there.
 
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Getting back to the original question...
I use Downloader Pro from Breeze Systems to do the transfer from camera/card to disk. I keep trying to simplify by only using Lightroom, but for me, it keeps coming up short. You can check out the app here: Downloader Pro - Download, Organize, Rename Images Photos Canon, Fuji, Minolta, Olympus and Pentax Digital Cameras
So many tokens and more...
I let Downloader copy the files to the drive according to my library conventions. It also renames as well. IPTC information is saved to an XMP sidecar. Lightroom import becomes a simple add in place.
They have a DNG conversion plugin, but it is a serial thing. Makes the download take forever, so I don't use it anymore.
 
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I was very happy with Downloader Pro. A great feature is that you can assign a token to a specific camera based on the camera's serial number. Ideal if using multiple cameras in the same project. The Preview before copy is also extremely useful.

I stopped using Downloader Pro becasue there was only a Windows Version and I wanted to adopt the same workflow (and file / folder naming convention) for my MacAir when travelling as for my Windows workstation back at base.

I adopted Photo Mechanic for a while. This works on Mac and Windows but ...

1. PhotoMechanic kept resetting the Seq No. which kept screwing up my filename convention.
2. Despite several requests over several years, PhotoMechanic never provided a preview feature. This can be painful if a mistake is made before copying hundreds of images.

I have written my own App to copy my images from cards or folders to my Photo repositary. I then use standard Lr to apply metadata and develop presets.
 
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Looks like Downloader Pro only runs on Windows. For a pre-processer on Mac that has extensive token and metadata processing you might want to take a look at Ingestamatic by Marc Rochkind. It is the successor or ImageIngester that has been around for years. Runs on both Mac and Windows. ImageIngester was the go-to application recommended by Peter Krogh in his original DAM books, pre Lightroom.

-louie
 
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LouieSherwin said:
Ingestamatic by Marc Rochkind.
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Looks interesting. Great that it works on Mac and Win. I will check it out when I get the opportunity. It will be very interesting if I can replicate the functionality I have already. I see one possible feature missing, but will check in more detail as soon as I can.
 
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This thread makes my head hurt!! Why won't just changing the year work just as well, or is this an effort not to have to worry about it again?
 
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fsuscotsman said:
Why won't just changing the year work just as well,
Click to expand...

I manually change my Metadata Presets every year for my Copyright related fields but would prefer not to.

More imprtantly, while the Import Module is very powerful (and Adobe made a massive mess of trying to dumb it down), it still lacks basic features which forces me to use my own custom written App. I cannot select the option to import Raw only or Jpg Only or both. I cannot select by date. I could go on. Some of us use our own apps or third party apps to handle the gaps in the Lr feature set.
 
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fsuscotsman said:
This thread makes my head hurt!! Why won't just changing the year work just as well, or is this an effort not to have to worry about it again?
Click to expand...
Copyright laws vary from country to country. So if you want a valid copyright for the country where you live, you need to know and prepare your images to comply with your local laws. The best protection in the US is to register your copyright with the US Copyright Office. U.S. Copyright Office It is not free and anything unregistered has less protection even if it does include a copyright notice. Simply including the copyright notice to an image file does not fully protect you. And the notice is not valid unless it includes three things: the C in a circle © ,the year of first publication and the name of the owner. You have seen various options for programmatically writing the copyright notice with the correct year and frankly they require a lot of work though not as much effort as registering a work with the Copyright office for full protection.
For me, all of this upfront preprocessing is unnecessary for probably 99% of the images shot. Even though they may have a copyright notice, they are still not registered and any derivative uploaded to the web may still not include this notice unless specifically included at export. My images downloaded from Facebook contain the Copyright notice. Those that I've sent to Flickr, do not even though I have uploaded them with Copyright notice embedded.

So the question you need to answer for your self is do you want to share your images on social media? If so, how do they treat your copyright notice? Are there images that you shot that have value and commercially viable? If so, then these need to have more than an embedded copyright notice. They need to be registered with the Copyright office.

I'm not going to slow down my import workflow just so that every image will have a valid copyright notice. I will make sure that every image that I submit to the web will have a valid copyright notice with the "C" in the circle ©. the year it is Published and my name. I don't have any images that have value and are commercially viable. But if I determine that there are some I will make the effort to register them properly.
 
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