How To Register Copyright On Your Photographs - United States
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- čas přidán 30. 03. 2020
- I just started registering my photos with the United States Copyright Office, and I wish I had been doing it all along. In this video I take you through an entire registration, end to end, as well as show you how I organize my photos in Lightroom to make the process as streamlined as possible.
Download the spreadsheet for registration titles here: www.copyright.gov/eco/help/gr...
Articles on PhotographyForRealEstate.net (PFRE) by Mike Boatman, about WHY you should register your work:
Making a Case for Image Copyright - photographyforrealestate.net/...
Real-World Copyright Litigation: A Photographer’s Viewpoint - photographyforrealestate.net/...
Copyright Registration and the Importance of “Chain of Evidence Custody” - photographyforrealestate.net/...
Discussing Copyrights with Your Clients-It’s a Sales Tool - photographyforrealestate.net/...
My portfolio - www.gareygomez.com/
My tutorial - www.masteringrealestatephotog...
Great video! Made my first time registering a lot less painful than it could have been. Thanks!
Glad to hear it, Caleb! Thanks for your comment. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much!
Very helpful walk through, and good practice for moving forward. Any thoughts on best tools or ways to track infringement or misuse? This is a great use of the time it takes, but also think making sure you are smartly monitoring where you're images are used would make it even more worth the while.
Hi Michael, thank you. Glad you will be registering your work! I use Pixsy to monitor uses of my images. I recommend signing up for it right away, even if all your work is not yet registered.
Garey. Nice video. Thanks. One question you mention that the 'filename' will be printed on the certificate (around 13:00-13:30. mark), my understanding is actually the 'title' is what will be printed on the paper certificate and on the public record. Is this not the case? Thank you.
Great video. I'm finally registering some images that are precious to me and might be stolen if I don't register them. My question is, I published them in a book in 2017. But the pictures were actually taken in 10/11. You made a comment that I had never heard. You only have 9 months to register them?
Thank you! How did you get to the file name page? It was already open so we dont know how to get to it. Is it from the same website?
I just added the link to the description. Here it is: www.copyright.gov/eco/help/group/grpph-title-list-template.xlsx
Thanks Garey. Super helpful! One question- Should the registration be done using your own name or your company name (LLC in my case)? I'm curious if there's a benefit to having the copyright held by the LLC in case there's any litigation issues. I realize you're not a lawyer :-).
Hey Jeff, you're right, I'm not a lawyer! I really don't know the answer to your question because I am not in the situation myself. I register under my full name, but I also don't have a separately named company. My guess would be - and it really is just a guess - that if you have a company formed and intend to sell the company one day, or plan to hire a team of shooters to work at your company and produce work made for hire, that you would possibly need to register the photos under your company name. This way all work created "by the company" is owned by the company. If you were to sell the company one day, presumably the ownership of the photos would stay with the company in that case. I have no clue... just thinking out loud here.
But if you want the photos to stay with you forever, regardless of what you do with the company or its name in the future, maybe it makes more sense to register the photos under your own name. Or maybe it makes sense to treat different photos in different ways, and do two kinds of registrations: one for personal work, and another for business work. I don't know... talk to an IP lawyer!
@@gareygomez4420 Thanks Garey. Personal is probably the way to go since the company won't last forever.
Hi can you please tell me how to do the same process for the United kingdom ?
I don't know, Lightroom. Any chance you have a step-by-step process that you could send me?
Hi Garey, thank you so much for the video. This is very helpful. I have part of my photos published and the other part is not published. Can I copyright them all as published? I just don't want to submit two separate applications.
Hi Alena, you have to register them separately, I'm afraid. I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advise. But if you bend the rules, there's probably a very good chance that in the event of an infringement case in the future, you might lose all your rights due to your mishandling of this process. I recommend that you just suck it up and do it properly.
@@gareygomez4420 Thank you so much for your reply. Yes, agree, I decided to do it the right way.
Alena Makagon wrote, “I have part of my photos published and the other part is not published. Can I copyright [register] them all as published? I just don't want to submit two separate applications.”
If you *knowingly* LIE or MISREPRESENT a material issue in your copyright registration application (like the publication status of your images), your subject to a criminal fine up to $2,500. See 17 USC 506(e) (False Representation [Criminal Offenses]).
You can NOT combine published and UN-published works in the same copyright registration application -- they MUST be separated into published groups of photographs per the same calendar year (GRPPH) or groups of UN-published (GRUPH). In both applications, you’re limited to 750 images total.
@cnlicnli I don't understand how will anyone misuse your photos if they are not available on the web?
@@gareygomez4420What exactly does unpublished mean, that they were not uploaded to the web?
Hi can I still register the photos that were captured and published on year 2019? I’m a bit confused because you’ve mentioned about the 90 days grace period and it’s 2022 now. Pls enlighten me. Thank you.
Hi, you can register your photos ANY TIME. It's never too late, and it's my opinion that you should register every photo no matter how old it is (photos with commercial value - not family photos, etc... just to clarify). That's what I did. I did my first registration ever in January 2020, and by the end of February 2020 I had registered every professionally delivered image dating back to 2016. More on this below.
To clarify the 90-day thing: The rule is, your photos MUST be registered BEFORE an infringement happens (infringement = stolen photo) to be eligible to be awarded the higher minimum fines and statutory damages. It also qualifies you to be awarded legal fees (the infringer pays your lawyer instead of you). If the infringement happens before the registration, it is considered an untimely registration, and you will only be eligible to receive "Actual damages". (more on actual vs. statutory below)
The USCO gives you a 90 day grace period to register, though. Inside of those 90 days from the date of first publication (usually delivery of the images), if someone steals the image before you registered, it's okay. You are still 100% covered retroactively to the publication date as long as you register within 90 days. This grace period is there to make life easier for you. Without the grace period, you would have to register your photos for every shoot before you deliver them, and that's not really possible. For me, I do a registration every 90 days for this reason.
"Actual Damages" vs. "Statutory Damages" is a big deal. Actual damages are just the licensing fee. So if instead of stealing the photo, the person came to you and asked to purchase a license, the rate that you would have charged would be the actual damages. It might be a few hundred dollars, for example. Because it is such a low value, you would be hard pressed to find a lawyer to take the case. On the other hand, Statutory damages carry a much higher minimum fine in the courts, and you can argue that the infringement reduced the value of your images because the image is no longer exclusive and unique. Because of these higher minimums and having to pay lawyer fees, most cases settle out of court and lawyers take these cases on contingency.
Once again, for clarification and for emphasis: Registering on time (within 90 days of first publication) gives you a much higher value on your work. If you are registering images AFTER the 90 day grace period, you still get full protection and full value for any infringements that happen AFTER the registration. This is why you should still register all your older photos. Any photo you register today will be protected for statutory damages from any infringements that occur in the future.
Also please note, any registration you do can only contain images from a single calendar year. So you can't combine photos from 2019 and 2020 in one registration, for example. You can register up to 750 images in one group, as long as they were first published in the same calendar year.
Do it! Good luck!
Wow! Thanks for the clarification, Garey. Really appreciate your response. I have more questions though, I’m a VA and I’m trying to register my client’s product images that he uses on his Amazon listings. Should I ask for the original file of the photos that I should submit to the office or can I just download it directly from the Amazon’s listing? And also, for the publication month and year, I should base it on the day we have created or published the listing on Amazon, right?
@@cheekychique You should register the original published image, whatever that is. Whatever form it was originally published in (i.e. a product image with a cut out background, etc). All you need is a small JPEG file (I use 400 pixels on the long edge, basically a thumbnail). You need to use the date of first publication, NOT the capture date. If the first time the photo was published was when the amazon listing went live, then that's the date you use.
Got it, Garey! Thank you so much. Really a big help. Hope you’ll get more subs and viewers. 🙏🏼☺️
Finally getting around to this process, however I'm running into an issue where no matter how I input my date format to the specifications on the document it gives me the invalid warning "this cells contents violates its validation rule." I'm working with their document converted into google docs and have tried new documents in both chrome and firefox, but still no luck. It looks like the document is fine otherwise and should suffice so not sure if it matters, but is a bit frustrating. An example of my file name as well "20200701.308 N Herrin St.001.jpg"
Hmmm... hard to say what the problem is, but if I had to guess it's because you are not using Excel. Other than that I'm not sure what to say because you do need the dates in there as part of your registration process.
@@gareygomez4420 Yea it seemed to be a weird conversion thing to google docs. However I was able to change the validation rule and ensure the date read correctly and didn't give an error. Thanks for the helpful video, successfully did my first registration. Any shortcuts on copying file names, keep us posted this is the only painful part of the process!
how long did it take to get approved after you submitted ?
The timeframe for the Copyright Office to examine and process your copyright registration application varies based on a number of factors, including the number of copyright registration it has received and if the copyright owner has correctly filled out the application. The review of your application can be delayed if it contains errors/mistakes.
If you’re using the on-line registration system (eCO) and there are no issues with your copyright registration application, it’s currently taking “on-average” approx. 2.5 months to receive your mailed copyright *Certificate of Registration.* However, you can receive your Certificate sooner or much later; as processing times can vary.
www.copyright.gov/registration/docs/processing-times-faqs.pdf
Hello, I have a question about registering photos with different capture/publication dates. Let's say you have a project captured from 1/1/2019, but the client you shot for comes back in 3/1/2022 requesting for more images from that shoot. Since those new images the client receives would have a different publication date, would you include them in the registration for your images captured and published in 2022 or would it be best just to make a separate registration for them? Will the copyright govt accept a registration with images that have the same publication month/year but different capture dates from another year? I greatly appreciate it if by chance you read and answered this question.
I register ALL my images as UN-published works. If there are more than 750 images from a particular assignment, I’ll file multiple $55 UN-published registrations (GRUPH).
For your UN-published registrations to be valid, register your images at least two full days BEFORE you delivery the images to the client or share them on social media or offer your images for licensing.
You just do NOT want to group-register images as un-published on a Monday, and on that same Monday “publish” them by delivering them to your client.
So, if the client comes back a couple of years or months later, your works have already been timely registered, and you can release them, as they were all previously registered. That’s my copyright registration workflow.
When I try to paste in files, I am not getting the "paste special" option. All I get is the option to paste and only a thumbnail appears in the column. What am I missing?