Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/11/20

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Subject: [Leica] What do you do when a "repuitable" news outlet swipes youphotos ?
From: msmall at infionline.net (Marc James Small <)
Date: Sat Nov 20 17:42:40 2004
References: <CB33CDBD40F3B54FB6426E3620B36699777C1A@SAMTCASXM12> <CB33CDBD40F3B54FB6426E3620B36699777C1A@SAMTCASXM12>

At 05:00 PM 11/19/04 -0500, Tina Manley wrote:
>You are right, but if you expect to collect any money in court, you'd 
>better have registered the photos with the copyright office.  No lawyer 
>will take the case otherwise.
>
>Tina
>


Tina

That isn't QUITE the law, but you are quite close.

Without registration, a claimant is limited to actual cash damages -- that
is, you have to show that you could have sold these pictures elsewhere for
x dollars and that this value was now compromised.  This is rather hard to
prove unless you are dealing with a REALLY great photograph of an
unrepeatable event, such as the assassination of a prominent public figure.

With regustration, you are entitled to punitive damages which wrack up
rapidly.

The expert on this is probably Bob Shell <bob@bobshell.com>.

The only time I personally encountered a copyright infringement issue was a
local matter -- a local up-market magazine was told by the fellow who had
first-publication (ONLY) rights that it was okay to print my shots, and
they did so (and even mis-spelled my name!).  Had I pushed this to court,
the local Federal judges would have reminded me that I am an attorney and
not a full-time professional photographer and would have entered judgement
against the fellow with the first-publication rights which would both have
been nasty (he is a friend who made a mistake) and foolish, as he is not
among the more affluent of our number, being a retired optical engineer.

I did receive an apology and a corrected spelling of the name.

Marc

msmall@infionline.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!




In reply to: Message from gerald.r.haussler at usps.gov (Haussler, Gerald R - San Mateo, CA) ([Leica] What do you do when a "repuitable" news outlet swipes you photos ?)
Message from images at InfoAve.Net (Tina Manley) ([Leica] What do you do when a "repuitable" news outlet swipes you photos ?)