diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 0f1e97f..34a8943 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -3,6 +3,10 @@
 All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 This project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/).
 
+## [0.3.1] - 2016-01-02
+### Changed
+- Fix bug `get_image_property()` to ensure C string is copied.
+
 ## [0.3.0] - 2016-01-02
 ### Changed
 - Add `get_image_property()` function to retrieve, for example, EXIF data.
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index e6a522e..8151a66 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "magick_rust"
-version = "0.3.0"
+version = "0.3.1"
 authors = ["Nathan Fiedler <nathanfiedler@fastmail.fm>"]
 description = "Selection of Rust bindings for the ImageMagick library."
 homepage = "https://github.com/nlfiedler/magick-rust"
diff --git a/src/lib.rs b/src/lib.rs
index 44de0a1..9a41161 100644
--- a/src/lib.rs
+++ b/src/lib.rs
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ impl MagickWand {
     }
 
     /// Retrieve the named image property value.
-    pub fn get_image_property(&self, name: &str) -> Result<&str, &'static str> {
+    pub fn get_image_property(&self, name: &str) -> Result<String, &'static str> {
         let c_name = CString::new(name).unwrap();
         let result = unsafe {
             bindings::MagickGetImageProperty(self.wand, c_name.as_ptr())
@@ -107,11 +107,9 @@ impl MagickWand {
         let value = if result.is_null() {
             Err("missing property")
         } else {
+            // convert (and copy) the C string to a Rust string
             let cstr = unsafe { CStr::from_ptr(result) };
-            match cstr.to_str() {
-                Ok(v) => Ok(v),
-                Err(_) => Err("invalid value")
-            }
+            Ok(cstr.to_string_lossy().into_owned())
         };
         unsafe {
             bindings::MagickRelinquishMemory(result as *mut c_void);