Copyright from film and digital

[carmenloofah]

I am going to be making some work for a photofair from negatives, doing some of the printing myself and selling the prints and some will be made from digital copies of prints and negatives. Please can you tell me how best to copyright my resulting work of prints, postcards and cards. As I only work with film is it only necessary to copyright all my negatives and all resulting images produced from them, whether in film or digitally will be protected? I work in London so if you know of a reputable company for copyright protection, that would be much appreciated too....thanks Carmen

 

[Steve Smith]

Your images are automatically copyright the moment they are created. You don't have to apply for a copyright.

The US has a system of registering copyright. I don't think we have that in the UK. Regardless, it does not make your copyright legitimate, it just makes it easier to enforce and prove in the case of a violation.

EDIT: Apparently that service is available in the UK: Dead Link Removed


Steve.

 

[carmenloofah]

thanks Steve, that's very helpful...

 

[tim_walls]

Note that the 'UK Copyright Service' is a private business and not an arm of government or the judiciary, however official looking their stationery is.

The UK doesn't have a 'copyright register' (the US is pretty much the only country which does, and since they signed up to the Berne convention it is now more of an optional extra than a requirement even there.)


What the 'UK Copyright Service' appear to be doing is basically saying register with us, and then if you end up in a copyright dispute we'll turn up in court to say "yeah, he sent us a claim to copyright in the work in 2008." How much attention the court pays to this is up to the court.


In a copyright dispute, you need to be able to convince the court that you are the original author of the work. If you shoot film, this is fairly trivial - you have the negatives and the infringer doesn't, so game-set-and-match. For digital works this can be more difficult, and that's where 3rd party intermediaries come into things.



The old fashioned cheap way of giving yourself some evidence of copyright when I was a lad was this: Place copy of copyrighted works inside an envelope. Sign across the edge of all seals on the envelope, and then cover with sticky tape (i.e. it should be impossible to open the envelope without evidence of it having been opened being obvious.) Post envelope to yourself registered post. Stick envelope once you've received it somewhere safe.

If you need to roll up in court to prove you authored the work, you can use the Post Office stamp on the envelope with the date as evidence that you possessed the work before any of the alleged infringing works were produced.

 

[Steve Smith]

Note that the 'UK Copyright Service' is a private business and not an arm of government or the judiciary, however official looking their stationery is.

Yes, I did notice that but it is one way of getting a third party confirmation.

The old fashioned cheap way of giving yourself some evidence of copyright when I was a lad was this: Place copy of copyrighted works inside an envelope. Sign across the edge of all seals on the envelope, and then cover with sticky tape (i.e. it should be impossible to open the envelope without evidence of it having been opened being obvious.) Post envelope to yourself registered post. Stick envelope once you've received it somewhere safe.

If you need to roll up in court to prove you authored the work, you can use the Post Office stamp on the envelope with the date as evidence that you possessed the work before any of the alleged infringing works were produced.

Unfortunately, this is only evidence that you posted an envelope to yourself at a certain time. It could have been sent empty and unsealed and the contents added, sealed, signed and taped up at a later date.


Steve.

 

[tim_walls]

Yes, I did notice that but it is one way of getting a third party confirmation.

Oh, indeed, I wasn't meaning to criticise - just wanted to make sure the OP was clear.

I'm afraid I find the 'UK Copyright Service' website to be disingenous at best in that regard.

Unfortunately, this is only evidence that you posted an envelope to yourself at a certain time. It could have been sent empty and unsealed and the contents added, sealed, signed and taped up at a later date.

Oops, yes you're right - I forgot the critical step which was you're meant to stick the stamps over the seal of the envelope so the post office will frank over the seal.

Of course, that was the approach suggested by a lawyer about 20 years ago before shysters like the 'UK Copyright Service' had appeared on the scene .


In practice, putting said works in an envelope, taking them to your family solicitor, getting them to sign a receipt to say what was in there and then asking them to store said envelope and receipt in their document storage facility (all solicitors will have such a thing) will provide more than adequate proof and doesn't involve funding organisations who prey on the unsuspecting by implying there is an official 'copyright register'.



Of course, in this day and age you can probably just scan it, stick it on your website, and make sure your website gets crawled by Google or the Internet Archive 'Wayback Machine' - then you can point to the Google or Internet Archive cache for evidence .

 

[Gary Holliday]

As mentioned above, you don't need to register the image with a copyright agency. You are the author and hold copyright after the item is sold. I always place a copyright sticker or stamp with my name on the back of the image with a contact telephone number.

I also add an extra sticker on wedding photographs informing the client that it is illegal to make digital scans or copies...plenty of people chance their arm to save themselves money...most copy shops will respect copyright law.

 

[carmenloofah]

thanks for your help......