Legal Question in Business Law in California

The copyright follows the photographer. Thus, if you live in the USA but take a photo in Canada, your copyright is valid in the USA. You can register that copyright in the USA and in Canada � and in any other country that permits non-residents to hold copyright under its laws.

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Ms. Delain is mostly right. Copyright does indeed belong to the photographer wherever they go. It requires no formal registration. However, enforcement follows use. So if an image is pirated and used in a magazine published in Namibia, you would have to enforce your copyright under Namibian law in Namibian courts. You are also free to register the copyright in any country that allows registration, regardless of where the image was taken or the photographer resides, although how to go about the registration and what protections it affords are again local.