Could one of you tell me what magic set of words will get you to register your copyrights in your creative work (photos, illustrations, etc.)? Or do I need to do back-flips? Juggle? Tell me, and if I can do it, I will.
See, I’ve had to tell more than a couple of artists lately that although their work had likely been infringed, it wouldn’t be worth pursuing because they really wouldn’t get much for it because it wasn’t registered before the infringement took place. Sigh. That sucks.
Remember, if you register your copyright before an infringement, you may elect to receive statutory damages instead of actual damages in court. Oh, and you might collect attorneys’ fees too.
But no timely registration means, at best, you’ll get actual damages and you will have to prove those in court. You can’t just say “I would license this for $5000” and get it; no, you’d have to prove that would be a reasonable license fee for that use. That can get costly to prove and, well, poof, by the time you’re done with court your legal fees and expenses will be more than that $5K.
Think of this example: a major company uses your photo on its Facebook page. How much would you expect to get as a license fee for that? Now how much could you collect if you could get statutory damages and attorneys’ fees?
Which position would you like to be in to negotiate a settlement?
I can tell you which position an attorney would prefer.
Register. It’s the best “insurance” you can buy.
Sorry but you’ll have to do backflips. Unfortunately the task is like pissing in the wind. WHich reminds me I have to register a batch. Thx.
Ha! I’ll need to work on that. Thanks!
-Leslie
This is a very strange and odd American quirk of IP law. I hope that you some day will change it. It seems contradictory to equality in front of the law. And it seems futile. Can’t help wondering what purpose it is supposed to serve.
Aside from registering, I reiterate the following to creatives:
When freelance/independent artists & journalists timely register their media with the US Copyright Office, we tell Congress that we really, really do care about protecting are IP rights.
Since we have limited funds to express our concerns to Congress, increasing the volume of copyright registrations, in effect, can be used as a lobbying tool to help promote our creative rights agenda.
I’m wishfully hoping for that one day when the Register of Copyrights reports to Congress that the number of copyright registrations filed has doubled from the previous year with the bulk of those registrations coming from young artists (first-time filers)!
In the end, I blame art, photo, film, and journalism schools and their professors for not “substantively” teaching legal, business, and negotiating skills to students before they graduate.
For the moment, forget about suing laws schools that misrepresent law job placements. Instead, let’s go after these art schools and professors for negligence—they breached their duty by not providing students with critical non-art industry skills.
I am an industry professional as well as an art school student, and I will say that the biggest hurdle to me in this process is the timing. On the one hand, clients are often very eager to get their photos quickly. Many times I am feeding the images to clients bit by bit. In a perfect world, I could finish the entire job and still have a day or 2 to archive and register, but I have not yet figured out a process to streamline this.
Often I realize that the images are already in use, and I had not registered them. At this point, it almost seems like a waste of time and money to register. I know that the single most important detail about registering is that it is done prior to publication which just makes it difficult.
Also @ AC on the issue of art schools educating about these matters; my school is very thorough when it comes to teaching the business practices of photography. In fact, this curriculum is required for some of the accreditations the school holds. Beyond that, we are required to attend seminars held by professionals for class credit. I cannot speak for all schools, but the standards for mine are pretty high.
Sadly, this industry pays more effort to promote photo equipment and software than the rights of creatives.
Chad:
I think you’re getting some incorrect info. Registering as unpublished isn’t at all the “single most important detail about registering.” If your work is going to be published by your client, you can register the work as published noting the date of that publication and, for published work only, you have 3 calendar months from the date of first publication to register the work to have the registration act just like as if it was made on the date of first publication.
-Leslie
I had heard about this 3 month grace period for registering published work, but is there not additional requirements to register the images after they have been published? My understanding was that there are additional requirements.
I may have misspoke about the “single most important detail”, but is it not true that registering your raw images prior to publication will cover any future altered versions of the work? Would that cover any previous altered versions of the work as well?
Yes, there are some limitations to registering multiple images at once as published, but you cannot knowingly register work as unpublished when you know it will be published (and when), either. So learn the rules for both and do what is right. -Leslie