How To Copyright Photos - Tips & Tricks - Scott Davenport Vlog
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
- Big caveat: I am not a lawyer. In this video I share the registration process that works for me.
If you find this video useful, please share it! Share it with your photo friends, your camera clubs, and your online groups.
After my first vlog, I got a lot of questions about copyright registration. In this video, I share my registration process and several tips to streamline the registration process. This video is specific to the US Copyright office since that is the nation where I register my photos. You can create an account with the copyright office at eco.copyright.gov.
I use Pixsy to help me find infringements and get legal cases resolves. pixsy.com
This is a long video! Here is a breakdown of the main topics covered in this video:
1. Grouping photos for registration (2:08)
2. Staying organized and using your asset manager to track registrations (6:42)
3. Tips and tricks for the registration application (10:50)
4. Finding infringements (19:30)
FORMATTING NOTES
*Group Title*
“Group Registration of (Un)Published Photos, Published START_DATE to END_DATE; ## photos”
- The date is of the form MMM. DD, YYYY
- Commas and semi-colons matter!
Example:
“Group Registration of Published Photos, Published Jan. 1, 2017 to Mar. 7, 2017; 59 photos”
*Content Title*
“PHOTO_FILE_NAME, PUBLISH_DATE;”
- The date is of the form MMM. DD, YYYY
- Commas and semi-colons matter!
Example:
“Scott-Davenport-Beautiful-Photo, Feb. 2, 2018;”
I also want you to check out an excellent video from FStoppers, • How to Copyright Your ... . This video has great stories about infringement and other reasons you want to register your photos.
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Excellent content and presentation. Many thanks for this. It'd vey much appreciated!
Thank you for this. I am an ebay seller and someone literally stole images that I took with my own camera and they're using them to sell their product on ebay and they are actually making money. So you will see my product and also theirs (listed for 1 cent cheaper) with MY photos. EBay won't do anything about it. I took those photos a year ago so now I'm starting the copyright process and I'm just praying I'm successfull. I took SO many shots so I'm combing thru to make sure I get the exact final photo that I used for each product. I just want to cry. Smh.
Thank you for the tutorial. I'm not going to lie though; I would love a step-by-step tutorial.
Thanks for taking the time - so much time! - to really walk us through this. I very much appreciate the effort - I'll be sharing this w/ a couple of photo clubs I belong to, and then go check out the FStoppers video.
Sure thing, Alan. And thanks for sharing!
Wow, Scott! This is incredible and fascinating. From what I gather you saying is that a photo is published when you put it on your website or Social Media. With all the leg work done before you do that in the Publishing Phase. This is something I want to understand should it be necessary in the future to do; however, I'm mainly just doing Street Photography for my own satisfaction, a hobby. It's just something to enjoy. But I do want to understand this copyright, which makes a lot of sense. Thanks for all this information you have put together!!!
Hi John ... correct, "published" means displayed to the public, which may take the form of a simple social share.
If you have an original image that’s processed (for contrast, exposure, etc.) in a photo-editing software, the processed (new) image is a
*derivative* of the original photograph. By registering the original photograph, also protects the derivative image.
On the other hand, if the original image was heavily processed, then it’s advantageous to also register it.
Thank you so much for this video. It was extremely informative & thorough. I'm looking forward to putting your tips to use! P.s. BEAUTIFUL photography!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hey Scott, thanks a bunch for this. I have registered here in Australia and will start with my best images.
Hi Marty...how is the process in Australia. Similar to what I showed?
*"Publication” Definition* : If you’re just posting your images to your website to simply *"DISPLAY"* (show) your photography to others (and you’re *NOT* selling, licensing, or sharing, or giving them away for FREE), then those images are likely to be *“UN-published”* .
Sharing images with your family, friends, and inner circle is likely not “publication” of the images.
On the other hand, posting and *making your photographs available for FURTHER distribution* (to share, sell, license, make reprint copies even for FREE), is likely publication.
Here’s the official definition of “publication” from the US Copyright Office: www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf (page 7)
*The BEST plan is to register your photographs BEFORE you post them on your web or social media sites, either for display or licensing/selling*
Very helpful Scott......Thanks
Sure thing!
The way you help “prove” your copyright creation and copyright ownership (to a federal judge) is by registering your creative works either before “publication” or within five-years of first-publication. Doing so grants you “presumptive proof” (prima facie legal evidence) that you have a valid copyright, and all the information contained in your copyright registration application will also be deemed to be valid, unless disproved. See 17 USC § 410.
*If you’re unable to timely register your copyrights* , you should affix your posted web and social media images with a cool-looking watermark (logo) that includes your copyright attribution and URL and/or social media handle, robust metadata, and/or other “Copyright Management Information” (CMI), as this can provide you with some legal options if infringers intentionally remove, cover-up, or change CMI with photo editing software to hide their infringing actions or induce others to infringe.
A timely registered copyright is NOT required to pursue CMI violators. Actual money damages and profits OR statutory damages (from $2,500 up to $25,000) and attorney fees and legal costs are available (at the court’s discretion). See 17 USC § 1202-1203.
Per the 15:50 video mark: You would also “limit your claim” if your photographs include third-party creative materials, including Public Domain content: For example, you’re photographing a senior citizen who’s holding their high school portrait photograph (you would disclaim the high school photograph since you didn’t create that image).
Per the 5:20 video mark: Per 17 USC § 412(2), photographers must registered their images within *“THREE MONTHS”, NOT 90-days* from first-publication (to be able to pursue statutory damages) - there’s a difference between 90-days and the statutory legal requirement of three-months!
Take for example the three-calendar month range *“oddity”* of February (non-leap year; has 28-days) and March (31-days) and April (30-days) =
89 days! If you first-publish a work on January 31st (or any day in February for that matter and add three months) and wait till the very last day to timely register within the three-month window, that’s April 30th.
If you’re counting 90-days from the example, the last day to register would be May 1st, you’ll be one-day late, and won’t qualify for statutory damages.
I typically register my images as UN-published, as that works better for my copyright registration workflow.
If, however, I was registering my *”published”* images, I would register them either once-a-month or every-other-month. The “75-day” timeframe Scott Davenport uses to register his copyright claims is too close to the three-month time limit, IMO, as it’s too easy to get busy with life’s matter and forget to timely register my copyrights.
Keep the following in mind: If you’re timely registering your photo opyrights, then you should ask a copyright litigator (attorney) to review your (commercial) infringements vs. using Pixsy, ImageRights, and other image tracking entities.
As a rule, you will get much higher out-of-court settlement fees by using a copyright litigator. Pixsy is not a law firm; its goal is to locate infringements, push for *quick* (low) out of court settlements, take a large percentage of the recovery, and then move on to the next infringement.
Hi, Scot. This is Lucy. Thank you so much for your sharing. It's very informative. I have a question about the published and unpublished works. We've designed some intellectual properties and applied the images on products like party supplies, home decorations, and so on. All IPs are selling on our Amazon store, but we still have some of them without copyrights (some were designed in 2018). My boss suggests me to register these pictural and graphic works as unpublished groups of Visual Arts. Do you think that will work? Could you explain more about the published and unpublished work?
Hi Lucy… I can only speak to photographs and the process I use. I’m not a copyright lawyer and can’t advise beyond what I’ve described in the video. I hope you understand
Thanks for this well done informative tutorial, I appreciate how straight forward it is. I'll definitely be checking out more of yours. I'll preface this question by adding I'm not very savvy in this department. I'm wondering if you can clarify the "copyright deposit" size of 500MB maximum. The way I understand it (without a lot of help from the copyright office) is that when copyrighting an "unpublished group" of 750 photos they suggest putting all 750 photos plus the title list into one file and then zipping it. They say the entire body can't exceed 500MB. What size do you convert your photos to to make a 750 fit within 500MB?
Glad you enjoyed the video. I upload thumbnail JPEGs, about 400px on the long edge of moderate quality (~75 to 80, if exporting from Lightroom). The image does *not* need to be large, just recognizable.
Thanks so much for the quick response. YOU RAWK!
I want to copyright in order to make a few inspirational books which will include pictures I have taken. Do I need to go through all the same steps. I spoke to a guy in Albany NY who did this and it seemed to be a simple process, per him.
Hi Reginald ... I'm not a lawyer ... so there's that :) As you own the photos, I don't expect a problem using them in your own book. I'd think it'd be no different than licensing a photo from someone else and using it in your book (you skip that step because you're the owner on both sides of that equation). I presume there is also a different copyright registration procedure for a book, which I have not undertaken.
I have unpublished original art and i have both original and edited versions of each these artworks. Should i copyright the original or the edited versions? Im curious if you have any thoughts?
I've only copyrighted my published work, and if I happen to publish an unedited original, I will copyright that along with the edited (in other words, if I publish it, I copyright it). If your submission is under the 750 photograph limit, I see no downside to including the originals in the copyright submission. No extra cost.
@@ScottDavenport makes sense thank you kindly
How do we put 2 names (husband and wife) as the Authors of Copyright without using "The work for Hire" on the right side of the application? And also can i use the same method (copyright excel template) for Unpublished Photos also?
Hi Ricky... I don’t know about multiple authors. The same approach should work for unpublished photos as well. Just be sure to keep you filings for published and unpublished photos separate.
@@ScottDavenport Thank you Scott, if anyone else knows where to list the second Author, i would really appreciate it.
@@rickfromsandiegoca To add another author to the application (in the Author field), fill-in your name and select SAVE, and from the same screen, select the NEW* to add the second author.