What are a photographer's or artist's rights?

Question

I took a ton of photos of a band and since they refuse to credit me on any of them, and manipulate them graphically, I don't want them to use them anymore.

What can I do about this? I don't know the rights a photographer or artist has, even though I was an art student...

Answer 1

Unless they paid you for them, YOU own the copyrights.  That means you can ask them to stop and, if they refuse, you can take them to court to force them to stop.

Be ready to incur some costs to this suit.  Unless you took the time and effort to register your copyrights, you can't recover any monetary damages for their violations, but, at least, with a court order, you can make them stop or they face criminal charges.

Here is the official US government copyright office site for more information.

http://copyright.gov.

Answer 2

If you gave them without any agreement, even just a verbal contract, then there's nothing you can do. Put it as Lesson Learned. If there was a verbal agreement or written agreement, then you can take so litigation on it. However, since they manipulated the works, then that's going to be a problem with ownership - since they are not using the originals.

Just think of it in the long run, is it worth fighting for, or just look at it as an experience for next time.

Answer 3

These days, the government has come to the conclusion that if you have the original ( in this case the negative ) then the image is yours. I'm guessing that you're shooting digital, so in your case it would be the images on your sd card. You may want to put it in writing that you no longer want them to use your images without expressed written permission, and give them a copy. You should probably have them sign both copies to remove any confusion.

The thing about actually getting the legal paperwork for copyrights mainly entitles you to any royalties, and makes any legal proceedings easier. Since you don't have that, you'll have to do a little extra "footwork". What matters is that you have the original image, so it's yours, and yours alone.

Answer 4

Well how did they get them from you?  It might be tricky because now they are already using them.  But yes, that property is yours.  And ideally you can create some kind of contract, where a person may use or reproduce your images as long as they credit you.  So if they are using them, now you can only really either let it go, ask them again to credit you or to take them down, or.....the court route.

Like for a lot of copyrighted images, usually those people will just contact a site and ask them to take them down before any legal stuff gets involved.

Answer 5

report it to whoevers the head of that company or whatever

Answer 6

I think if you didn't copyright them or anything, there's not really anything you can do.

Answer 7

copt right