If I wanted to copyright my pictures.

Question

Would I have to pay a fee for each picture? Or would it be just one fee for all the pictures I have now and take in the future?

Answer 1

Copyrighting and registering your copyright are often confused. To copyright, you simply need to put a c in a circle on the back of the work, your name and the date.  You can't really stop people from stealing your work on line (unless you use a special HTML code that prevents right click saving- I'm not sure how to do that though) but what it will do is keep people from being able to photocopy your pictures at a photocopier place.  Here is a common example... someone buys one set of wedding pics or senior pics and then goes to a place like Kinkos (Now the Fed Ex store) and wants them photocopied. Reputable places will refuse to photo copy a copyrighted photo.  To copyright a work and register it you'll need to contact the copyright office.  What that does is register your work with a proof of date and would stand up in court better if someone infringes on your work.  A trick though that is less full proof is to get a copy of the work, mail it to yourself and don't open it and file it away. The postmark is sort of an establishment of the date. This proves you have a date to your work and it pre-dates any illegal copies. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

As others have said here, in 163 countries copyright exists the moment you make something original, like a photograph.

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 because you could easily alter that. Also, sending it to yourself in a marked envelope won't work because it's so easily forged that it would never stand up in court. 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. No one will be able to argue with that! :) The USPTO copyright service is like that, but it's quite expensive and only covers the photos you send in on a CD. The photos you take the next day won't be covered.

I use a service called http://www.provemycopyright.com because you get 1Gb of space to upload lots of your work, and you can upload as often as you like.

Hope it helps

Answer 3

As said here when you take the picture in the US you own the copyrite. You do not have to do anything else. Putting the copyright symbol on it is not required as one responders said it was it does help. you are not required to register the copyright but again if it goes to court it will help. Making sure there is information in your exif data and using embeded watermarks can also help protect you. I even know people wht when they do not want the watermark to show put it in a layer that is hidden. Most people who would steal it would never look to see it was there but it could be recovered for proof of copyright if needed.

If you choose to register and want to do multiple for a single fee here is what they copyright office says on collections

A collection of works may be registered with a single application if either of the following requirements is met:

The collection is made up of unpublished works by the same author and owned by the same claimant; or

The collection is made up of multiple published works contained in the same unit of publication and owned by the same claimant.

Answer 4

From the time you expose the image, the copyright is yours.

You can make an XMP file with your copyright notice using PS and then append all the EXIF data on your image files.

If you want to register the copyright, then you can send a CD or DVD of a "collection" of images for one price ... just use the form you can download from the Copyright Office

Answer 5

Legally, the copyright is yours the moment you take the picture.  Practically, that doesn't mean a d**n thing.

Make sure you put the copyright in the file info (XMP data), but that can be deleted.

A watermark may help if you're posting the images online and that's what you're worried about.  You can do this in Photoshop (or Elements) batch processing, or you can do it yourself with a text layer then save the file off with a different name such as adding _wm to the end (e.g.: img1234.jpg becomes img1234_wm.jpg).  Again, someone who knows what they're doing could probably clone that out.

The most secure way is to register with the copyright office with a flat fee for every photo that'll fit on a CD.  Not sure if they accept DVD.  But no, it's not for every photo you take, just every photo you submit.  Of course, then, you have to find the image of yours that someone's used without permission, find the actual person who's used one of your images without permission and then try to prosecute.

Generally, I think people are pretty honest.  But a watermark wouldn't hurt to make it a pain in the **** for them to use your work.