I do not recall any discussions or problems at the time, it was accepted as being the Norm. and the fact that our photographs were covered by Copyright which was visible for all to see, the Copyright was in the name of Shipspotting.com and did not impinge upon the photo.
My guess is that it was lost during the migrations of the Websites, at that time we had a guy called TaHa as the Technical man so it is possible that Henrik will be not be aware of this issue but you can have a word with Clyde, he was heavily involved during the Migration period, I was only the humble Deputy Webmaster but as I have said it might still be somewhere and be retrievable, if not then maybe it could be re-introduced.