Darren Addy wrote: > Also, although technically in the U.S. every creator of a photograph > has a copyright at the moment of creation, in Real World practical > terms you must also actually go through the process of registering said > copyright with the Copyright office to truly be afforded legal > protection. Then, yes, big penalties kick in and even bigger ones if > the appropriator cropped out or otherwise removed your copyright > watermarks. > > A copyright watermark implies that you register your photographs and so > has the effect of being a deterrent to theft. But to actually protect > yourself, get a copyright lawyer to protect you, etc. you need to > actually follow through and register your copyright (which costs money > and most people, heck even most photographers, don't do that). > > If your images are being stolen, however, it can much more than pay for > itself. A lot of photographers make more money from prosecuting (and > settling out of court with) copyright violators of their work, than > from legitimate sales and licensing of their work.
I've been doing more reading on the subject, but really no further forward. I would certainly want to put a copyright watermark on pictures now and some sort of wording on the website as well to make things clear. Still a little mystified by the slide situation, namely if you have a slide you didn't take but you have possession of it, if you are holding the only copy of said work, it must be an uphill battle for the person who did take it and holds the copyright to do much about it. That isn't getting away from the principle of the rights of the copy write holder, just the practicality of doing something about it. Don't pass/sell/give them on I suppose is the key here! Malcolm -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
