Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/11/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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!