COPYRIGHT PICTURES INFO

[Ken Cox]

this was a question asked in this week's digital newsletter.

Q&A: How Do I Copyright a Digital Photo?

I've noticed that many pictures I see on the Web and elsewhere are copyrighted. What is the process to get a picture copyrighted? Do I have to repeat the process for each and every picture?

--Carol Bar, St Louis

That's a great question, Carol. Copyright is not well understood.

Let's start with the basics: Copyright is the method established by the government to protect the rights of artists, regardless of what form their work takes--text, music, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, or software. Violation of copyright is punishable by law. And since copyright violation is a tort, the artist can sue for punitive damages as well. In a nutshell, that's why you shouldn't take images from Web sites without the owner's permission.

That said, how do you copyright something? Well, any work you create is automatically copyrighted. In other works, there is an implicit copyright on your work, and you don't need to do anything to receive some protection under the law.

On the other hand, there are copyrights ... and there are copyrights. While no action is required to copyright something, if you ever expect to challenge someone in court, simply putting a copyright notice on your work before it's published dramatically strengthens your case. To assert your claim, just place a copyright notice somewhere on your image--use your image editor's text tool to add the copyright symbol [©] followed by the year and your name. That ensures someone can't claim that they thought your photo was in the public domain.

Finally, the most aggressive copyright action you can take is to register your image with the Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. There is a form to fill out and a small fee to pay (it's currently $30), but this provides you with the highest level of protection available under copyright law. For the vast majority of us, though, that's overkill. For more information on the issue, visit the United States Copyright Office:

http://www.loc.gov/copyright

ken

[Maureen]

Copyright

Copyright issues in UK

There are many excellent sources of advice. I have included some on my web site at http://www.digital-av.co.uk. to try to make it clearer to newcomers.

Please be very aware of copyright and purchase the necessary licences.

If in doubt.........always check first.

UK Information from IAC

People are constantly asking me about the possibility of Copyright infringement when using music in our productions (video/film/slide-tape sequences). The quite usual remark is " I only give my productions a very limited exposure..."

Well, we all tend to ignore regulations that we don't like, or consider to be unreasonable...how many of us break the speed limit in our car trips every day!! Nevertheless, laws are meant to be adhered to and not broken.

IAC offers the necessary Copyright clearance licences at very reasonable rates and it is our responsibility to abide by the conditions of these licences and to see that all our productions are covered at the time of compilation. Incidentally, it is necessary to obtain Copyright clearance BEFORE dubbing the soundtrack and NOT after the production is completed!

It is thought by many that no action is ever taken by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) or the other licensing bodies, but this is by no means the case!

As I am constantly reminding people, there is no such thing as 'Copyright free music' only possibly, Royalty free...in that a fee is included in the purchase price of music issued by some publishers.

I also quote from the Internet:

"What is Copyright?

It is an unregistered right (unlike patents, registered designs or trade marks). So, there is no official action to take, (no application to make, forms to fill in or fees to pay). Copyright comes into effect immediately, as soon as something that can be protected is created and "fixed" in some way, eg on paper, on film, via sound recording, as an electronic record on the internet, etc.

It is a good idea for you to mark your copyright work with the copyright symbol © followed by your name and the date, to warn others against copying it, but it is not legally necessary in the UK.

The type of works that copyright protects are:

1. original literary works, e.g. novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, lyrics for songs, articles in newspapers, some types of databases, but not names or titles (see Trade Marks pages);

2. original dramatic works, including works of dance or mime;

3. original musical works;

4. original artistic works, e.g. paintings, engravings, photographs, sculptures, collages, works of architecture, technical drawings, diagrams, maps, logos;

5. published editions of works, i.e. the typographical arrangement of a publication;

6. sound recordings, which may be recordings on any medium, e.g. tape or compact disc, and may be recordings of other copyright works, e.g. musical or literary;

7. films, including videos; and

8. broadcasts and cable programmes.

So the above works are protected by copyright, regardless of the medium in which they exist and this includes the internet."

Finally, you may be interested in a communication that I have had from MCPS:

"We've had a few different cases of copyright infringement recently actually. The main one I can think of is a video/DVD product released by an amateur video producer that contained a number of tracks from one popular band and was being sold on the internet. Not only did MCPS stop the sale and further production of the product, the stock was destroyed and the copyright owner's solicitors also got involved to apply a fine.

I believe the producer paid out a significant sum after royalties and a fine on top of the costs of producing and manufacturing the product."

Yes! action can and IS being taken and members should not ignore the Copyright laws, they are, after all, there to protect the interests and livelihood of the composers and musicians to whom some our licence money eventually finds its way.

Gerald Mee

IAC Copyright Advisory Service - IAC web site

Also received this information...................

ANY recordings (dubbings) made in the UK will have to be cleared with

MCPS etc BEFORE they are sent abroad. Licences for IAC members and

members of the Photographic Alliance have to be held individually by the

authors. If they are not such members then the licence fee must be

negotiated with MCPS.

Of course, the author's Copyright will also have to be cleared

(presumably they already have given permission for their work to be

'exported'?)

*******************************************************

So you see I am very nervous about posting my own sequences on the web sites although I would love to share my work with many others in this Forum. Fortunately several of us do have contact in the UK and manage to see each others sequences. A few even exchange unfinished sequences on CD by post to give advice and encouragement.

I have now found a very good friend who is prepared to write some background music for some of my sequences. Much of my work usually consists of scripted voice, sound effects and a mixture of music, although I do have a few slide to background music sequences too.

Thanks to everyone for sharing all your knowledge and work so freely here. Hope I can help someone too one day.

(after three weeks the shingles rash is finally fading but still very painful so I may yet do the sequence !)

Love Maureen

[DustyDesert]

I've been struggling with this issue myself as I am working on a new slide show to offer on my website. Even though it will be free, and mostly for entertainment, I've had a very difficult time finding music. I pulled my last show because I was nervous about the music and the traffic it was getting. I've approached several musicians, and not the big names either, and prices range from $50-250. The $250 was for a 10 year old track of drum music! Not mainstream. I considered the $50, but it was not exactly what I was looking for. Greed is an ugly monster and it's sad. Seems like some of these musicians would jump at the chance of more exposure with the exchange of being given credit and a link or something. I'm sure that in the cities one could find struggling yet talented musicians (of which there are MANY) that might jump at such a chance. After all, it would be free advertising.

Something about copyright law that hasn't been mentioned. When you file a copyright, which I have done in the past, it does NOT mean that you own the copyright no matter what. If someone happened to file one like yours, but filed it BEFORE you, and if an issue ever arose over it, they win. The only way around this is to hire a "coypright lawyer" or you can visit the library in Washington D.C. and search for yourself. All an official copyright means is that it's on record. I don't know how this law compares with countries other than the U.S.A., but it is probably similar.

There is such thing as "royalty free", but it involves an official declaration which puts it into the public domain. Once there, nobody can copyright it ever. Classical and folk music is an example. Fortunately, titles can't be copyrighted at all, only trade marked.

~Cindy

[Ken Cox]

Even tho' Igor gave us the capability, this may interest the Adobe users

quoted from

http://www.vividlight.com/articles/3815.htm

Copyright & Your Digital Files

ken

[alrobin]

Copyright laws also vary from country to country. In Canada at one time, and I believe this still applies, everything published was automatically copyrighted (unless, as Cindy says, one could prove prior publication or formal legal copyright).

[Guest Techman1]

Ken,

Thank you for the link. That's exactly what I do if I have a commercial photograph that I'm allowing some company to use (non-exclusive rights to print/publish). I save all of my copyright info as outlined in the link for Photoshop and then when the image is opened in Photoshop that copyright information is displayed (or at least the copyright identifier comes up when opening the file).

You can also embed the © copyright symbol by holding down the Alt+0169 when typing text and place that into your image if desired (for added protection and/or awareness).

Thanks for bringing this up as we all need to be very much aware of copyright laws in our individual countries.

Fred