Copyrighting?

[Sef Hafez]

alright, I know I've been asking a lot of questions lately, but this is a big one. A lot of people that I know have been taking some of my pictures and passing them along, so now LOT of people have them. Am I allowed to put a copyright symbol on them? How do I do that? If I dont "register" them, will I get in trouble for using the copyright symbol to scare people away?


Thanks,
-Sef-

[engstrom]

Absolutely you can put a copyright symbol on them. Most people put a border around the image in a complementary color and put text including the photographer's name and the copyright. According to what I have read (but I'm no lawyer) you have a copyright as soon as you take the image. Registering the copyright only allows you to sue for punitive damages as opposed to real damages. Punitive damages are where the big money is.

[Sef Hafez]

How do you put the symbol?

[Roy]

Someone (wish I could remember who for credit) said to use these keys. Hold down Alt while typing 0169 © . I've been using it ever since then. Easy to remember and quick. There are other ways but I like this one best. Thanks to the TPF member that pointed this out.

[Buddha]

Creating an image makes you its owner, so you own the rights to copy it as well. No registration required. In fact, there is no government agency to register with.
I would start putting the copyright symbol and at least your initials on all of the photos that people are stealing as soon as possible. If you want to retain ownership of your photos, do what you can to get them back or the next thief in line can say that you didn't care before, so you can't care now. There is precedent for that.
You might try putting only thumbnails on your site, as discussed on another thread, so they are too small to steal and do much with.
Have you tried selling your photos to the thieves?

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Did some research on the subject a while back and if you take a person to court the federal law says that you have at least the ability to sue for $250 per image (if memory serves me right) violated and it goes up from there.
http://www.copyright.gov/ if you have a collection of works that say you wish to publish as a book.

[snidow]

Originally Posted by DEMDeepEllumMusic

Did some research on the subject a while back and if you take a person to court the federal law says that you have at least the ability to sue for $250 per image (if memory serves me right) violated and it goes up from there.
http://www.copyright.gov/ if you have a collection of works that say you wish to publish as a book.

You also have about 3 months from the point of publication to copyright an image to be able to sue for more money, this is not say you can not sue at any time or copyright at anytime. This only indicates there is a time frame that it is in your best interest to register your copyright. As DEM stated, you can also register a collection of photos and it can be from months January to July or just about anything. It's much cheaper and easier to do it that way.

[Steelsun]

ALso, there are rules that allow you to put a ton of images on a CD in reduced format and submit the whole CD for one fee to Copyright/register all the images.

I know some photogs that do this every 3 months.

Supposedly they are working to do the same for DVD media.