On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Mark Roberts <[email protected]> wrote:
> That's pretty much how I work things. > > A few weeks ago I attended a seminar on copyright held by the American > Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), so let's clear up a few > misconceptions about copyright that have been promulgated in this > thread: > > You are under *no* obligation to put *any* copyright symbol or text on > your image or in the metadata to own copyright. This is true. Copyright occurs at the moment of creation. But not if you want to really reap the benefits financially of the copyright protection due you. Also, you are a moron if you have registered your photo for copyright and DO NOT put any sort of mark on your photograph. Why? Because there are specific ADDITIONAL penalties that the infringer puts themself in line for if they (for example) remove or crop out your copyright notice on their use of the infringed image. More leverage for your side. > But if you don't *register* your copyright with the copyright office, > you can't (in the U.S. anyway) take an infringer to court. > > In the U.S. copyright is a federal issue, so you have to go to Federal > District court to file an infringement claim. This costs, according to > the representative from the ASMP, around $10,000. Again, in the real world things rarely get to this point. > But if you have *registered* your copyright, you can claim statutory > damages, including legal fees, so it'll probably cost you nothing to > go to court if you have a valid case. > If you haven't registered copyright, about all you can do is pressure > the infringer (through a DMCA takedown letter or just by bitching to > his web host or whatever) to stop using your image. True dat. > Needless to say, I have registered the copyright for all the images I > have on my web site and in my books with the U.S. Copyright Office - > www.copyright.gov - it's pretty easy to do online now. It may get > even easier soon: The Copyright Office is reportedly working with > Adobe and Apple to get upload and registration capability (and > payment!) built in to future versions of Lightroom and Aperture. Perhaps now that Mark has said it some will stop their inadequate arguments. : ) Darren Addy Kearney, Nebraska Who will hopefully do better in the swimsuit competition because he has clearly BOMBED the Mr. Congeniality part of our competition. -- Nothing is sure, except Death and Pentaxes. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
