[LGuin]

I'm new to shooting RAW and would like to process my pictures through the software Pentax provided with my K50 camera (SilkyPix). The software appears to do a great deal more than I will need. My question is, does my Pentax camera enable me to Copyright my pictures within the camera while shooting in RAW? Thanks for any help you can give me on this.

[boriscleto]

Pages 226-227 of the manual explains how to set the copyright information which will be recorded in the Exif data.

[Urnamaster13]

Can this copyright information be modified/hacked in any way to steal the photo by making it appear someone else took the photo ?

[DeadJohn]

Any digital data can be hacked. If it can be stored, it can be changed.

[rawr]

Can this copyright information be modified/hacked in any way to steal the photo by making it appear someone else took the photo ?

Yes. Not all regular photo apps (Picasa, Windows PhotoViewer etc) will let you amend core EXIF metadata. But many other tools will.

[amoringello]

Adding your copyright info into EXIF does almost nothing. It is easily modified, as noted above.
The fact that many websites strip EXIF data when you upload your image makes it mean even less.

Placing your name in a watermark helps.
It at least ups the stakes a little bit to work for someone to modify your image in photoshop or similar tool. Depending on complexity of the image and of the watermark, this may take some actual skill to remove.

Still, although you have copyright of your image merely by taking the photo, real monetary protection is not available to you unless you file via the Copyright Office.
But that is a whole 'nother discussion to which you can educate yourself, if you choose to do so. :-)

[LGuin]

Pages 226-227 of the manual explains how to set the copyright information which will be recorded in the Exif data.

Thanks so much for your feedback. I really appreciate your help. The thing that brought this up is my son-in-law processes his RAW pictures using Light Room which he has programmed to embed a Copyright on each picture. He then receives a notification when someone accesses one of his pictures. He thought that my Pentax could embed a Copyright on each picture.

[amoringello]

Pentax can embed copyright text into the camera, but that has nothing to do with notification on access.
No technology exists to do that, sadly.

Data (waaayyy different than EXIF or IPTC) can be embedded such that it can be retrieved from a scan of an image even when the image is resized, cropped and even modified.
But detection is a manual process... or by some automated system that scans the Internet looking for photos that contains such data.
Lightroom has no built-in method for embedding such data. This is often offered by relatively expensive services that maintain databases of the info and perform the necessary scanning.

Would be interested in how he believes notification was enabled.

[Oakland Rob]

Both Google and Tineye do reverse image searching; that can be one way to find copyright violations. Tineye has a subscription service IIRC that can inform you if it finds your image being used. The copyright stored in IPTC can be searched for in some instances, but a thief can easily remove it.

[rawr]

Would be interested in how he believes notification was enabled.

Same here. Especially if the service could (affordably) handle lots of images.

Since the Berne Convention on Copyrights, as a legal matter, you have a copyright whether you identify it or not, simply by becoming the "author" of a "work", other than one in which you have already given up that right by contract or employment. The waiver of your rights has to be the intentional waiver of a known legal right that already exists. In the U.S., you can file a copyright with the Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress for a small fee; doing so at least three months in advance of the filing of an infringement suit is required for subject-matter jurisdiction in a U.S. District Court. So, as a legal matter, it's a good idea to identify your reservation of copyright in the medium, but not required, and you don't lose your copyright by someone else editing the metadata. It's a good idea to preserve the original of any work you think might be the target of infringement in a way that guarantees that you can establish the date on which the work was first in your possession. E.g., put a copy of the photos you want to protect on a closed-session DVD, and send it to yourself via priority mail, and ALSO get a certificate of mailing. Use the USPS website to obtain the tracking information by email and also print off a copy showing both acceptance at the post office as well as delivery. When you ask for the certificate of mailing the clerk will look at you like you're a two-headed monster from Mars, because they think it's redundant. However, the priority mail tracking information is not admissible except on rebuttal because it's hearsay, while the certificate of mailing is self-authenticating statement on the part of the United States which is automatically admissible to show that you put something in the mail on a particular date. Your testimony will supply what was mailed, how, and to whom. When the other side says, "No he didn't, he's making that up", you can then produce the tracking information in rebuttal along with the still-sealed envelope that you received from having mailed it to yourself. Be sure the certificate of mailing is correctly executed - you fill out the "from" and "to" information, have the postage placed by the clerk at the post office in the rectangle for that purpose, and be sure it gets hand-cancelled overlapping both the postage and the certificate, so that anyone having changed anything would destroy the relationship between the two. Btw, I am an attorney, but free legal advice is worth what you've paid for it - in case of questions, consult a qualified attorney who is licensed to practice where you live.