Posted by Michael Miller: 
Hi, All.

I had checked into copyrights a few years back when I needed to copyright some lyrics...which I did with the Library of Congress. (I think it was $20 per copyright back then...1991).

I heard of a "Poor Man's Copyright" after I had already copyrighted my material. It works like this:

Whatever you want copyrighted, put an original of it in an envelope and mail it to yourself but, DON'T OPEN IT. The United States Government (USPS) is vouching for you that YOU are the copyright owner by stamping the date it was sent. If anyone does anything with it AFTER that date, it's easier to get retribution since you have the sealed original and the USPS guarantees the date it was sent.

Seems logical to me.

Mike

I have friends that have done the same thing just as a back up plan, but also they paid the now $30 to officially copyright their work.

$30 is very cheap insurance.

Posted by SayCheeZ!: 
For the most part, I'm pretty sure the 'mailback' copyright is useless, mainly because there is no charge to obtain a copyright (a photo is copyrighted the moment of creation).

Even if the mailback system was a viable way to obtain a copyright, it offers no greater protection than doing absolutely nothing.

For another reason,  anyone can stick an unsealed envelope in the mail and fill the envelope with something after it was sent back. 

A copyright is created the moment an item (photo, drawing, text article...etc) is created.  Nobody is allowed to reproduce the item without your permission, but the penalties for violators are relatively minor  unless the copyright is REGISTERED with the Federal Gov't.

There is only ONE WAY to REGISTER a copyright, and that is by submitting the piece along with the proper documentation and fees.  Once an item is REGISTERED, copyright violators will not only have to pay hefty fines, but the violators will have to pay all attorney fees and court costs (if found guilty).

The 'poor mans' registration technique is to send a whole collection of items to the copyright office and have them registered as a single work.  (For instance, instead of registering one song, register the whole album).  The price is the same to register one item or the complete collection, but the protection is equal for each piece in the collection.

You're right. I forgot to mention the "complete works as one" thing. (One CD, One batch of lyrics, etc.).

Mike

Posted by Michael Miller: 
Hi, All.

I had checked into copyrights a few years back when I needed to copyright some lyrics...which I did with the Library of Congress. (I think it was $20 per copyright back then...1991).

I heard of a "Poor Man's Copyright" after I had already copyrighted my material. It works like this:

Whatever you want copyrighted, put an original of it in an envelope and mail it to yourself but, DON'T OPEN IT. The United States Government (USPS) is vouching for you that YOU are the copyright owner by stamping the date it was sent. If anyone does anything with it AFTER that date, it's easier to get retribution since you have the sealed original and the USPS guarantees the date it was sent.

Seems logical to me.

Mike

Posted by theda: 

see here or here or here.

or maybe here for german copyright issues and for rights on modeling

Posted by theda: 
All right, once more:

1) Copyright is granted to the author of the work upon creation (published or unpublished).  There is no need to register with the copyright office to obtain/hold copyright.

2) Mailing yourself is an oldwriter's trick for proving authorship. Since copyright laws have changed, the "poor man's copyright" is a nullity.

3) Per the US copyright website, work MUST BE REGISTERED in order to bring a copyright suit. That means, you must register in order to seek both actual damges AND punitive in the US. I do not know how long it has been the case or what something that is somewhat contradictoray to the spirit of the Berne convention is the law, but it is. Copyright need not be registered upon creation.

But it's also crucial to understand that it's not simply that registering is a formality that needs to be done prior to filing an infringement case, but that unless you have either registered (the date the copyright office marking your packet as recieved being the key date) the work prior to infringement or within 90 days of first publication of the image than you can only recover actual damages and profits rather than also having the threat of up to 150 grand per infringement plus the possibility of recovering attorney fees.

it's that threat of the potentially large damages and legal bills and the fact that having that threat means it's more likely you could/would actually go to court if need be, which can act as a deterrent to theft, or in the case of an existing infringement, gives you the bargaining position needed in order to get a good settlement

Posted by Doug Lester: 
It's easy to register them, it cost about 30 bucks and a CD to register up to a year of photo production.

Actually you can bulk register any length of times worth of work if it's unpublished. but you must register published work separately and only published work from a single calendar year can be registered in bulk.

Posted by Doug Lester: 
I do it roughly every six months. Frankly it's silly not to register our work.If we post them on the net and they are of decent quality, they will eventully be stolen, esp if they are of attractive ladies without a lot of clothing. . The forms can be downloaded from the copyright office web site and coverage can begin when the images, forms and payment is UPSs or mailed, as long as you have proof of the date of shipment.

Unfortunately it's the date the copyright office stamps it as received that it takes effect.

Posted by Anthony Citrano: 
there's way too much copyright paranoia around here.

I prefer the term ignorance

For all the posting on registering copyright (if that even applies to you) there seems even more with stuff like "ah, but the model turned up therefore she should get 50%" or "well, if you were paid it is different".

Scary really...

Posted by starmodels: 
By following copyright through the Federal Government you are properly protecting your work. Any infringement on that copyright will cost the violator/s up to triple damages.

That's a "mixed myth" to coin a not very catchy phrase/concept.

Treble (triple) fees is a figure bandied about, and often called a standard, as an amount to bill someone for unauthorized usage if you're trying to work out a deal with them rather than going to court. However it has nothing whatsoever to do with potential damages in an infringement suit. If the misuse was a mix-up or a mistake and it's an existing client or potential client that you want to or think you could continue to work with or work with in the future than it's up to your judgment on how to deal with negotiating and billing for the unauthorized use.

But if it was clearly intentional or you otherwise don't care about or wouldn't want to work with them in the future, and the image/s were or could be registered within the time window, and you're trying to collect as much as possible for the use then tripling what you would have charged could be astronomically shorting yourself depending on the circumstances.

The actual statutory amounts recoverable are up to 150 grand per infringement plus attorney fees

Posted by Aaron_H: 

the thing is, unless the scope of the illegal usage is pretty major then the amount you could recover wouldn't be enough to make it worth suing over because the costs of filing a federal copyright suit and paying a qualified attorney are too high, and you wouldn't have the remedy of recovering those costs from the defendant available because you hadn't registered on time.

Well the part I wrote above about not being able to collect attorney's fees unless it was registered on time is something I've always heard, but in just re-reading the statute that seems not to be the case unless I'm mis-understanding it:

"§ 505. Remedies for infringement: Costs and attorney's fees

In any civil action under this title, the court in its discretion may allow the recovery of full costs by or against any party other than the United States or an officer thereof. Except as otherwise provided by this title, the court may also award a reasonable attorney's fee to the prevailing party as part of the costs."

And you'll also notice that you might have to pay the other sides attorney's fees if you lose the case.

Posted by theda: 
It is up to the judge hearing your case if the infringed upon party is awarded treble damages. 

Yes, but it's not like treble damages is some sort of standard remedy and the judge may award it or not. Any particular amount up to 150 grand can be awarded on the statutory part depending on the facts of the case and the judges opinion. It's also up to the judge to award double, quintuple or any other multiple if it's even based on an actual damage or actual should have been fee in the first place, which it doesn't have to be.

Posted by marksora: 
on what basis do you find that the poor man's copyright has no legal bearing.   It was taught to us at college from a lawyer.   

Maybe he was wrong but that goes along with my statement that just asking a lawyer does not fix your problem.  I bet most of us know more about the legal questions than most lawyers you would approach,  even those who claim to be part of the business.

Well Mark, it's irrelevant in most cases. Even if it had some legal standing in terms of establishing ownership of copyright, it does nothing in terms of protecting your copyright in an effective way. It has no bearing in establishing copyright in the sense that going through that process now means you have an "official" copyright. You're copyright exists automatically at the moment it's fixed in a tangible form. The only other "official" step is to register your copyright, which gives you most of the important potential remedies the law provides, it gives your copyright "teeth."

In copyright cases involving photography the actual origin of the photos, who took them, is almost never the issue in dispute. The issue is almost always a question of usage rights,  what was in the paperwork, did the usage violate the scope of the rights granted, or was the user granted any usage rights at all? The other major category, but by far in the minority compared to the first type, is infringement on the basis of "copying" by imitation or recreation. In other words they didn't illegally use your actual photograph, but they make their own photograph that is found to be too closely based on a specific work of yours.

The cases where the actual dispute was who the actual original author of the work was are extremely few and far between, and that's the only instance where the "mail it to yourself" theory could come into play. For instance you make the image in the year 2000 and mail it to yourself and then another guy comes along claiming that he actually made that photo at a specific time after that. Then you could prove he was lying if it was believed that the envelope wasn't tampered with and it had a legible post mark date. But even that still wouldn't prove it was your photo, just that he was lying or wrong about producing when he said he did.

Even if you had registered the photo the authorship could be disputed and it would come down to other factors in proving who the real author was. Rowen might be right about the shifting of burden of proof depending on whether you had registered or not, I'm not familiar with that. But it would still come down to both sides having a story and both sides having evidence, witnesses, reputation, and credibility and the judge would have to decide.

Posted by esherman: 
1) The minute an expression of an idea is permanently fixed, whether visually or in writing, it has copyright. There is no difference between "legal" and "technical" copyright. This is in keeping with the Berne Convention, which is one of a number of international agreements on copyright. Copyright lasts from the date of that permanent fixing to 70 years after the creator's death. But even this can get tricky, because a court can rule that a particular work doesn't have sufficient originality to qualify as a copyrighted work. This actually happened to a photographer over the last couple of years (I read about this in PDN, I think). He had done a simple product shot. When the client wanted additional rights and the photogrpaher refused, the client had another photographer recreate the shot. The first photographer sued and the court ruled that because it was simple lighting and a plain background that there wasn't sufficient originality, so there could be no copyright violation. In other words, there is no sure thing in the law.

I have a vague recollection that it was eventually overturned, not for sure though. I think it was a Skyy vodka bottle, but it was a liquor bottle for sure, shot on white seamless. The liquor maker claimed that since it was nothing more than a straight shot of the bottle that any shot of thier bottle would be a violation if he was awarded a copyright, I'm paraphrasing but it was something close to that. The thing you have to remember is that even in the most basic product shots on white there are myriad choices in lighting, angle, framing, perspective and other aspects and that the standard for the originality needed to be copyrightable is extremely low. Virtually any and every photo is copyrightable. That case is the only one I've ever heard of in reading PDN and a few other pro mags that report on legal and copyright cases in photography for 12 or 13 years

Posted by esherman:
3) If you bring suit for a copyright violation, the legal tools available to you vary depending on when you registered in relation to the date of the violation. If you registered either before the violation or within three months of your first authorized publication (and putting it on a web site could constitute publication, by the way), then you are entitled to statutory damages and attorney's fees. But that means that the court and judge have that as an option; they aren't required to award them. Without statutory damages, you are limited to actual profit and actual damages, which are a lot tougher to prove than you might think. For example, in actual profit, the plaintiff only has to show the gross revenue, but the defendant still can show applicable legal expenses to reduce the apparent "profit".

Where did you get the info that it's the first authorized publication? That's something I've never seen spelled out anywhere. Obviously it would make sense and be the fair thing, but then again I don't think fairness is behind the design of the law. You'd be truly fucked if someone was allowed illegally publish your work without your knowledge and you don't find out about it until after 90 days if that counted against you. But I've seen all sorts of people bring up such instances and the answers and advice never seem to draw a distinction between an authorized first publication or not. I'd love to know that this was for sure the case.

Posted by esherman:
4) Registration is $30 for a single piece or a group of pieces that have been created in the same 12 month period (note that it doesn't have to be a calendar year). Depending on how you physically file, there can be a limitation of 750 photographs for a single batch.

That's not quite right. Read what I wrote earlier on it and read the statute