copy command from terminal

I wrote a 4 line script to automate backing up files from my usb pen to my hard drive. I am getting an error


cp -R photos/ /Users/blah/photos/

picture.jpg: could not copy extended attributes to /Users/blah/photos/picture.jpg: Operation not permitted


If I cd into the photos directory and say
cp picture.jpg /Users/blah/photos/ This works!

Thanks in advance.
sgribber