Copyrighting personal photos?

Question

I love to take pictures and have a bunch of my best on a screen saver at work. Most of my patients who see them rave about them and say I should send them in to photo contest or submit them for calendars etc. My question is should I copyright them and how do I do that? Is it expensive? Not that I think anyone else would want them but I would hate for someone to use and profit from pictures I took. Also, if I put them in a web album are they free game for anyone to take? Thank you in advance for your help.

Answer 1

In theory:

As soon as you press the shutter button, you have created something that is legally YOURS. Anybody who takes it without permission is infringing your copy right and you could sue them. The copyright and ownership are automatic, proving it could be another issue but can be overcome by keeping originals.

In practice:

some people are ignorant and have NO clue that they are stealing. They don't even mean to do harm. They think it is up there on the web, they can simply take it. They don't know that even if you purchased a print, you're not allowed to make copies of it. A great big copyright notice across the photo may or may not stop them from stealing.

Other people are thieves - they know full well that they are stealing, but have no morals. Only REALLY big watermarks that are impossible to post process away may stop those types.

On the web, you can do this:

Keep them at a smaller file size and lesser resolution. They still look ok on a monitor, but are impossible to print at anything than a very small size.

If you don't mind the look of it, put a watermark on them. The more difficult you make it to photoshop that away, the better your chances, but the uglier the result.

Life isn't fair sometimes, huh?

Answer 2

In 163 countries copyright exists the moment you make something original, like a photo. Even if they are on the web, the copyright is yours.

The problem is when someone rips you off and then you have to prove that the copyright was yours and not someone elses. It's not good enough to have a dated version on your own or a friends computer or send it in a letter because you could easily alter that. It has to be independent.

You can upload them to a special webpage and they fingerprint them and record the time you uploaded. This means that you have an independent record showing when you made it.

You can use the US copyright service which costs about $45 per application you make. This takes about 4 to 6 months to get registered.

You can also use an international online service called http://www.provemycopyright.com. You get an account with 1Gb of space to upload lots of your photos, even if they are in work-in-progress format. When you make a new version, you can just upload that one too and it doesn't cost you anything extra.

This one kind of acts like an independent third party which helps to prove that you were in control of the copyright before you send it off to a publisher.

Hope this helps!