The .cr2 files are as they were uploaded from the CF card, i.e., no xmp sidecar files.
If these files are fresh out of the camera then the data you're likely referring to is not IPTC data at all. It is the EXIF description tag. Photo Mechanic does not display the EXIF description tag as IPTC data. My suggestion would be to use Ingest with an IPTC Stationery Pad and add your own copyright information to the Copyright field. Then it will be put into IPTC and/or XMP data for you and all applications will then see it.
-Kirk
OK.
The copyright and Author (Artist) fields are set by the camera.
In DPP they are shown in the shooting information rather than in metadata. In Bridge CS3/4 they are shown in the IPTC (IIM, Legacy). In LR 2.1 they are shown in IPTC. One would think that these items would have been standardized by now.
I see that the camera puts the same information in a jpg file in the Copyright field with an EXIF tag of 8298 and Artist field with an EXIF tag of 013B (using Opanda).
Using the camera to insert copyright information does not appear to serve a useful purpose if it is not used.
Oh well, I can work around it. Thank you for your response.