[Leica] fraud on the LUG

[timatherton at theedge.ca (Tim Atherton)]

> powerless unless Guido does a Ted on the perp.  For those of you who
> quibble about being registered, that only applies to non economic
> damages.

Not at all correct - registering allows for (in the right circumstances) the
application of statutory damages AND recover of legal costs.

Among (several) other things it means that a lawyer might take your case on
a contingency basis. Without registration you will be hard pressed to get a
lawyer to take the case at all unless you are willing to put plenty of
moolah up front to cover the costs. And if you want to go any further than
merely issuing a lawyers letter, it is going to end up costing you rather a
lot very quickly - probably more than the lawyer will recover for you.

registration of copyright (either as unpublished works or within 90 days of
publication) is an absolute must for any professional photographer if they
wish to protect their images. Without it, you have virtually lost before you
have started in any infringement case. (BTW "published" in the context of
copyright registration basically means "made public" in whatever form)

tim