How do I register my image's copyright and what can I do if it's violated?

In Part I of my copyright series, “I'm not a "Pro." Why should I worry about copyrighting my photos?” I discussed why both professional and amateur photographers, and even weekend vacationers should seriously consider taking measures to raise the level of their copyright and other protection for their photographs.

In Part II of the series, “What do photographers need to do to protect and document their copyright?” I discussed practical suggestions to protect your photos and establish your copyright firmly.

In this last article of the series, I discuss copyright registration in the US, how and when you can, and why you should, register your photographs, and if your copyright is violated, what remedies registration extends to you, that you otherwise wouldn't have.

You can submit your photographs to the US Copyright Office, part of the US Library of Congress, via postal mail, or online. If you register your photographs by postal mail you don't have to print each image, but can submit them on CD. You can register your photographs whether already published, or still unpublished. Your photographs are eligible to have their copyrights registered the moment you make them.

FBI Anti-Piracy Warning Seal now available to photographers to protect image copyrights

There is a new tool available in the Photographer's arsenal to fight copyright infringement of images, the Anti-Piracy Warning Seal (APWS), shown on the left.
The APWS is the official insignia of the FBI and the US Department of Justice. It was designed to help detect and deter criminal violations of US intellectual property laws through public education of the laws and the FBI's authority to enforce them.

You might have noticed this seal before on DVD movies, and some software, for example. In the past, the use of this seal was only available to the entertainment and software industries. Now, in the US, all copyright owners may use the seal, as long as they follow the appropriate regulations for the seal's use, which can be found in 41 CFR Section 128-1.5009.

NSL Photography and the NSL Photography Blog are back up!

Hi All,

Update: Scott Wagner, GoDaddy's interim CEO said in the afternoon of September 11th, in an emailed statement, "It was not a 'hack' and it was not a denial of service attack (DDoS). We have determined the service outage was due to a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables."

I wish GoDaddy would get their story straight.

Whether hackers took down the site or not, hackers which do take down websites, or make public the private accounts of individuals, for any reason are criminals, and must be dealt with by our court system to bring them to justice for their criminal behavior which affects ordinary people everywhere.

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On September 10, 2012, my registrar and intermediate URL host of my NSL Photography galleries, GoDaddy, went down at 10:20am. They returned to operation fully about 9 hours later.

Some weren't able to access my galleries at all, or this blog. I'm sorry for the inconvenience that caused some of my visitors.

They were apparently taken down by a single hacker group, Anonymous, as they have taken credit for the event, over their stance against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) which GoDaddy initially supported, but eventually pulled back from that support. Apparently it wasn't enough for Anonymous who has taken the law into their own hands as they have decided to be prosecutor, judge and jury.

While I disagreed with GoDaddy's support of the Acts, and publicly said so, I am outraged by the callous disregard for the law, and for the millions of innocent customers of GoDaddy, including me, that Anonymous has put out of business. We depend on our websites being operational. I believe that GoDaddy's support of these Acts was a poor choice, but they had the right to do so, and as one who believes in the US Constitution, I support that right, and the rule of law.

People will never be free unless they support the rights of others to also be free, even when they disagree strongly.

The hacker group who took down GoDaddy is nothing more than a common criminal who deserve serious prison time.

Thanks for bearing with me during this outage.

Ned

What do photographers need to do to protect and document their copyright?

In Part I of my copyright series, “I'm not a "Pro." Why should I worry about copyrighting my photos?” I discussed why both professional and amateur photographers, and even weekend vacationers should seriously consider taking measures to raise the level of their copyright and other protection for their photographs.

In this article, the series continues with practical suggestions to protect your photos and establish your copyright firmly. In the next, (last) article in the series, I will discuss copyright registration in the US, how and when you can, and why you should, register your photographs, and if your copyright is violated, what remedies registration extends to you, that you otherwise wouldn't have.

Smartphone Apps for Photography: Photojot

Photojot is application which permits professional photographers and serious amateur photographers to record details about shoots or individual shots for future reference when detailing image information, and plan future photo sessions.

It is especially helpful for “forgetful” travel photographer needing data about their photographs.

With it you can capture essential information to organize photographs for various purposes. You can scout locations and jot down notes about them, to plan future photo shoots.

I'm not a "Pro." Why should I worry about copyrighting my photos?

I'm asked this question often when I run workshops, or anytime I'm with enthusiasts and we're talking photography.
“You're a pro. I understand why you copyright your photos, but why should I worry about it? I'm not selling my photographs or using them in my work.”

It's important to understand that every time a photographer, or even a weekend vacationer presses the shutter release on their camera to make a photograph, the image is copyrighted the moment it's made. That's right, every photo made is copyrighted, the instant it's stored on film or in a memory card.

But that's just the start.

Photography Exhibition: The Getty Museum - Portraits of Renown: Photography and the Cult of Celebrity

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, regularly has extraordinary photographic exhibitions. Portraits of Renown: Photography and the Cult of Celebrity is no exception.

This exhibition will run through August 26, 2012

Photography's remarkable ability to shape identities has made it the leading vehicle for representing the famous. Soon after photography was invented in the 1830s, it was used to capture the likenesses and accomplishments of great men and women, gradually supplanting other forms of commemoration.

It's July 4th, and that means photographing fireworks

Wednesday, we in the United States celebrate our nation's birth. In Philadelphia, America’s birthplace and the nation's first capital, that means after a concert at the foot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, more than 500,000 people will enjoy one of the largest and most spectacular fireworks displays in the nation.

I'll be there. If you're there too, look for me south of the Art Museum.

Here are my updated tips for photographing fireworks using your digital camera:

Farewell to Facebook, at least for galleries and samples

Facebook has been in the news lately, and for many, the news hasn't been good.

Privacy issues continue to be in the news, as Facebook continues to adjust and readjust user privacy settings, requiring users to constantly reassess Facebook privacy policies, settings' options, and how Facebook has changed user settings from prior user choices.

Lately Facebook not only added their own email service, but without consulting their users, unilaterally changed their users' default displayed contact email address to users' new @Facebook.com email address, without so much as a simple notification of the change.

While it's true it's easy to change the default contact address back to the old one, I would ask why that should be necessary, why Facebook would decide to “tamper” with their users' contact address at all, and why Facebook didn't contact a single user, letting them know they made the change, and if not desired, how to revert back to their original address.