I'm afraid that I can only speak for copyright arrangements here in the UK. however I would expect arrangements elsewhere in the world would be broadly similar.
Here in the UK we have a great source of information on the subject, Copyright User.org, for both professional and amateur photographers, although in most respects there is no difference.
For example :
How do I copyright my work? Is there a formal procedure?
There is no formal registration procedure for copyright; as long as your work qualifies for copyright by being original, it obtains protection as soon as it is in a permanent or fixed form. In UK law, originality is defined as using your own skill, labour, judgement and effort. In other words, what this means is that the work must not be copied from another work; it should originate from the author.
Is it okay to use other people’s work just for personal use?
In terms of copyright infringement in the UK, there is no distinction between personal and commercial use. Using someone else’s work without permission or payment, outside of the copyright exceptions, is an infringement of that person’s copyright.
Here are a couple of important things to remember:
1) Copyright arises automatically; no formalities, such as registration, are required. Because of this, even if there is no © symbol or any copyright information at all attached to the work, the work – unless it is very old – is still likely to be protected.
2) The fact that a work is publicly available – like a picture you find using Google Images search – does not allow you to freely re-use it.
When you purchase something legally – eg. a song from iTunes – you need to check the terms and conditions of the licence in order to know what uses are allowed. This is not easy at all as licences are usually long and technical. In general, most licences do not permit you to re-use the work in new productions. However, there are a few licences like Creative Commons, which explicitly encourage the re-use of work.
However I would say that 'policing' copyright, especially now that so much is available on the internet is always going to be a very difficult operation. for this reason I only ever post low resolution images on the internet and usually put a visible signature on the image.
But if someone wants your image, there's not a lot you can do to stop them. The use of a good Reverse Image Search Engine such as TinEye can be invaluable if you suspect an image of yours has been used elsewhere and without your permission.
TinEye very quickly searches more that 14.5 billion images on the internet and will throw up any matches it finds.
I have successfully used TinEye on a few occasions and found images of mine being used elsewhere. I have contacted the users and politely asked them to take them down, or pay me, or at the very least credit me with the image on their website etc.
Hope this helps
