What Do You Really Know About Copyright Law?

As a photographer (a software developer), I am always aware of protecting my rights under copyright laws. Although not too difficult to understand, I know there are many misconceptions. Note that it is different for the software world, especially when you are working as an employee of a company. What I am concentrating about is for the photography side, which works as creative work, and where your original work of art is protected the moment it is created a “fixed in a tangible medium of expression” (be it printed on paper, or posted in the web). As for the web, there are conflicting ideas and comments on it being considered “published” when posted.

There are always some good questions you may ask

• Does a message saying “copyright by XYZ” is enough? Do I have to use the little (©) symbol and the year the work was created?
• Do I have to register the work with the “Federal Courts?
• What if I post my copyright inside a digital image’s metadata such as the International Press Telecommunications Council Photo Metadata (IPTC) data or Exchangeable Image File format (EXIF)?

I am not a lawyer and will not be able to give you a long rundown of it, but want to point out a nice recent article by Digital Photo Pro magazine that answers all these questions and more.

 

Link

 

(Thanks Mark!)

Some kids do get it

 

I received the following email this week:

Hello.  I am a 10th grade student at (name removed) High School, and am currently enrolled in a web site design class.  For our final project, we have been divided into groups and our groups are constructing a web site.  My group is focusing on Miami, Florida.  We are making a tourist guide.  We've split up the work so that everyone does two pages, and one of my pages is on the Miami Seaquarium.  I need a few pictures, and yours are by far the best I've seen; however, I wouldn't want to use them without your permission.  So, may I use some of your pictures? Please?

Seems they found my photo gallery through some search engine. It is heartening that some kids are learning the proper ways of doing things. Surely the teacher prodded them to obtain licensing and permissions, not only to teach them about plagiarism and copyright issues but also to cover the school’s butt. In any case, I’m very pleased that some get it right.

I answer that it would be my pleasure to offer two pictures for the project, as long as the copyright is kept and it is only used for this project. She picked the two pictures you see here. I love a happy story.