copyrighting

[jmr]

i'm interested in selling my photos, possibly on the internet, but i'm concerned about unauthorized usage. does anyone have any experience/suggestions about copyrighting photos?

 

[Ka]

I write c2004"my studio name" all rights reserved.

And also over-score the image with a watermark with my copyright. Here's a link for the watermark:

Dead Link Removed

Good luck.

 

[Donald Miller]

i'm interested in selling my photos, possibly on the internet, but i'm concerned about unauthorized usage. does anyone have any experience/suggestions about copyrighting photos?

The latest information that I have regarding United States copyright protection indicated that while one can file a formal application for copyright registration with the government, it isn't necessary to formally do so. The signature of the artist of an orginal work on indicated work will serve to indicate that the image is a copyrighted image with the ownership of said copyright residing with the artist.

The latest information that I have available indicated that the ownership of said copyright will reside for the lifetime of the artist plus a period of twenty five years.

 

[removed account4]

hi jmr -

there is a ton of information on copyright protection on Dead Link Removed .

i was always under the impression that as soon as you created an image it was copyrighted, but within the last month or 2 i came to realize that while the image *is copyrighted*, since it isn't registered with the copyright office, there aren't really many lawyers that will help you out if you run into a problem of stealing & usage ... registering isn't very hard. you fill out an application, and submit the images & a fee of $30 for a group filling. within 6 months you will get notification that your work is registered. ( if people decide to take your images and use them without your consent, there is a pretty steep fine for each offense --- and from what i was told by the copyright office, you can't really take anyone to court without the certificate. )

there is way to electronically tag your work. it is through digimarc (http://www.digimarc.com/ ). there is something that is imbedded in the image file - digimark has "spyder-bots" or something else as wacky sounding that scrubs the internet looking for your work. it isn't very expensive and from what i understand it is very much worth it.

good luck!

 

[David R Munson]

In practical terms, if you don't formally register your images with the copyright office, if someone infrignes and you take them to court, you can pretty much only hope to keep them from using it any more. While in theory you can collect up to a maximum of $150,000 per copyright violation, this almost never happens, and collecting any noteworth amount in damages is really only possible if you have a formally registered copyright.

Read up on the EP, APA, and ASMP web sites and buy a copy of the ASMP Business Practices book. When you find someone stealing your work, you won't regret having done so.

 

[Ed Sukach]

Searching...

I am still enraptured by "MLoyola3.bmp" ... and have had NO success in tracking down the photographer.

I DON'T think that posting that image in the "Technical Gallery" would be an infringement of Copyright -- but before I dump APUG into deep trouble, I'd like your input (Sean ...??).

I've checked the U.S. Copyright web site - which should be of interest here:
loc.gov/copyright/ - Note: The entire address is [ http://loc.gov/copyright/ ], but when I click on that in Netscape, I get a search for "www" with a lot of "finds".

Anyway ...
I'll send a PM including this image to anyone interested ...

 

[sparx]

Ed, i would have thought that posting an image in the hope of tracing the photographer would be acceptable. It would have to be a pretty mean-spirited individual to start proceedings for infringement under those circumstances. At the ver y most a nicely worded 'please remove' should be all one would expect and you will have found out who the photographer is.
Besides, i'm dying to see this image. It sounds intriguing.

 

[wdemere]

For "MLoyola" to actually get any money from you she would have to prove that you somehow prevented her from making money on the image by illegally copying it and then allowing others to illegally copy it.

I doubt that posting it in the technical area would cause any great loss of funds from her, especially given that you can't even locate her in google.

As someone pointed out, if the copyright owner asks you to remove the post and you do so immediately, there is very little that any court would give them beyond that. Of course, there are always people who think that the legal system is for their use in any inane personal vendetta they decide to pursue.

So, to cya:

Create a fake account on yahoo, create a fake account here, then post the image. Say something like "I've seen this image too. Is this the same one you are talking about?"

problem solved....