So who owns your photos?
And what does it mean to have copyright.
I'll go over all of it on today's episode of
Ask David Bergman.
Hey everybody, welcome back as always,
I'm here answering your photo questions,
don't forget to go to askdavidbergman.com
and submit your own
questions there, I'll pick the best ones
to answer on a future show.
Today i've got one from Fernando Q.
and he asked, who owns your photos the
subject who paid,
or the photographer who snapped the picture?
Ooh copyright, this is such a great topic,
I love talking photo business.
So look... when people ask me what photo
classes they should take
first of course you should attend my
photo workshop, my Shoot From The Pit workshop,
you get to shoot a live concert with me
it's really a whole lot of fun,
but selfishly after I say that, I say the
next best thing to do
is to take business classes.
Look knowing how to run a business
is the difference between being a great
photographer, and then actually being a
great photographer who can make a living.
Copyright is a form of protection
provided by the laws of the United States,
to authors of all quote
"Original works of authorship".
The copyright act of 1976,
formed the basis of modern copyright law,
that's a long time that this has been in place,
now look i'm not a lawyer, you have to
check with an IP lawyer
for any legal issues, I don't even play
one on TV, don't take this as legal advice.
i'm just talking from my personal
experience over 30 years
as a working pro.
So take it or leave it.
Now look...
copyright can apply to lots of creative
works not just photography, music,
art and books, and a whole bunch of other things.
You can't copyright an idea like
a lighting setup, it really only applies
when you turn the work into a tangible object,
like film, or digital media, or print or
something like that.
What copyright does, it gives you control
of how the work can be used, and allows
you to profit from that work.
Now physical possession
is irrelevant, whether it's a digital
file a negative or the print you can
have the copyright even if there are
thousands of copies.
Although of course it's much harder to
police your copyright if that's the case,
but the copyright holder regardless of
who has physical possession of the image
can decide what they want to do with the image.
They may never want it shown at
all,
or they can license it for specific uses
to specific people or entities.
This is how photographers, how many
photographers including myself
actually make a living.
Now i might sell physical things like coffee
table books and prints,
but i also license the use of my work
for specific usage,
things like press PR, advertising, etc
I can choose who, how, and when i want to
issue those licenses.
Now be aware there are other legal
issues that affect how you can use and
license your images.
Even if you have copyright there are
things like property and model releases
and some things some of these things you
should discuss with an IP lawyer for
sure, if it's a part of your business,
but to answer Fernando's question by
default, in the united states I have to
stress that this is just in the United States,
laws change from country to country,
and you have to research them in your
own country, but by default in the US,
the creator of the work is the copyright
holder automatically.
It doesn't matter who owns the gear, or
if somebody else set up the lights and
put the camera on a tripod,
whoever pushed the button is
the creator of the work.
Even if you hand your camera to a nice
person to take a shot of your family on vacation,
that person will own the copyright to
that image.
Now look before march 1st 1989,
you had to put the symbol, the copyright symbol,
on your work in a specific format to
actually get copyright protection
under the law, so now after 1989 that's
optional you might want it on there as a
watermark just so people know who took
the picture and reminding them that it's copyrighted,
but every image taken in the U.S. is
automatically and immediately protected by copyright,
as soon as it's exposed to film or
captured by the digital sensor.
Now the term of copyright or how long copyright
lasts varies depending on a few factors
but in general it's the life of the author plus
70 years.
Now you can go ahead and
register your copyright with the U.S.
copyright office if you want,
that's part of the library of congress,
however registration is not required, you still
own the copyright, however having said
that if you plan on filing a copyright
infringement case against a person
or a company that you believe used your
work illegally, then the images need to
be registered, because it goes a long way
in proving that you created the image
and when you did it.
Now you can register after the
infringement, but it's best to do it
before the images were ever shown anywhere,
wherever, before they were published or
within three months of first publication.
You get a lot more protections if it's
registered then and honestly I doubt a
lawyer would even take the case if it's not
because it limits you to winning only
actual damages, which are difficult to
prove, and are likely just what the usage
would have been in the first place.
so if it's registered on time,
and can be proven that it was a
willful infringement.
Penalties can be up to listen to this
150,000 per infringement, that's a big stick
that you wield when dealing with these cases.
Now again, i'm not a lawyer and you
should hire a good one for cases like this,
but it's safe to say that registering on
time is better than not.
Now the registration process itself has
changed over the years, i used to
physically burn cds and dvds of low res
images and mail them in
with the form.
Nowadays it's all electronic,
and basically amounts to you
uploading your images and paying a fee,
there are some limits as to how many you
can register at one time, but
I'm going to put a link below to the
official registration page with the
copyright office, so you can look up all
that information and do it for your own work.
Now when does the person who push
the button not own their copyright?
Well there are two really ways that that
could happen.
One in general, if you're a full-time
employee, based on the IRS definition of
what a full-time employee is.
Then the employer owns the copyright
basically you're sort of a cog in the
machine that created the
the work, and therefore your employer
has the right to profit from those
images, now you can also,
after the fact, you could transfer your
copyright to a client or to anybody
via a copyright transfer, if you sign
something that says
"work made for hire',
then that is a copyright transfer.
Those words are very important and have a very strict
legal definition, if you do that you have
no right to the work, someone else owns
it, they can control it, profit from it,
and they don't even need to credit you.
It's not yours anymore in any way.
If you do this,
they should be paying you a lot of money
to make up for that loss of control and income.
if you're a.. want.. somebody who
wants to publish images before you
publish somebody else's image, and this
means resharing it online, or using it in publication,
you need to be real careful, because you
don't want to wind up costing your
business hundreds of thousands of dollars
simply because you didn't go through
proper channels to obtain a license.
Look as a creator of artistic works, at
the end of the day, it is about control,
it's about, we have the ability to profit from our
work, and that allows us to create
more work, because we can make a living
doing it, so understanding copyright
and keeping control of your work and
learning how to license it properly,
and as a user making sure you use images
properly without infringing on somebody
else's copyright, is hugely important,
these are protections that have been in place for
a very long time, and they're somewhat sacred, so
don't mess it up, let's keep copyright
going, I'm a big fan,
and controlling it is how you're going
to make a living in this business.
Thanks for asking that question.
I really appreciate it, again if you have your own
photo question go to askdavidbergman.com
Submit the form on there, and i will pick
the best ones to answer.
Also you're already here watching Adorama
videos there's so many great
Adorama TV hosts on here, with lots of
photo content, make sure you subscribe
and you watch all of the other
things below and I mentioned it before
selfishly, I have a Shoot From The Pit
photo workshop, we shoot a live concert
together, it's really a great time only
five people per show.
Go to Shoot From The Pit.com
you can check that out,
and hopefully i'll see you out
at a show with me soon.
Thanks so much for joining me.
I'll see you back here next week on
Ask David Bergman.