12 Comments

• #1 by Brian on June 28, 2012 - 7:29 pm

  

  Thanks for a great webinar. I wish there would have been more time to see the rest of the slides. Very informative.
  In 2007 I took a picture of an historic church in our town. The church has since burned down. My image has never been published. I want to register the image in 2012. Whenever I see a copyright notice it always includes a year. In my case would the image be copyright 2007 (when I took the image) or copyright 2012 (when I register the image)?

• #2 by Jack and Ed on June 29, 2012 - 4:09 pm

  

  The year you took it, 2007. If you are registering a group of images you took previously, technically you can group images from multiple years together in one application. But while technically acceptable by the copyright office, it does open the door to claims it is not an “orderly” registration and can be challenged in court. For that reason, if you have work from previous years, we recommend strongly to group them by year and register them by that year. The important thing is to have them registered.

• #3 by Claire on July 1, 2012 - 1:58 pm

  

  Thank you very much for the webinar last week. It reinforced things I’d read in your book. I just wish you’d had more time for your presentation. I’d love to see you two do a course on CreativeLive.com.

  I was wondering, is posting images online via sites like Blogger, FaceBook, Google+ a bad idea even if your images are registered because of the licensing clauses in their terms of service?

• #4 by Jack and Ed on July 1, 2012 - 3:00 pm

  

  Creative Live sounds good. Send them a note requesting us ;->
  As far as far as the social site, yes, register your work. All your work. Some of their TOS does not give people or companies the right to rip you off. You have to have someone, like a lawyer, translate the variety of TOS’s. Sometimes it’s just limited rights that they need in order to have your images on their server, so other can see it. But some of the TOS’s over reach and do ask for a lot more than they technically need. After all that, you have to decide, you have to balance the benefits and the pitfalls of posting images. Part of it might depend on where you are in your career. Me? (Jack that is, I’m not speaking for Ed), but I rarely post images on social sites. For someone just starting out, there might be reasons to promote yourself in those venues. That’s a whole article or book chapter by itself. But any which way, always register all your images.

• #5 by Claire on July 4, 2012 - 9:06 pm

  

  Thank you very much for the reply.

  I did send Creative Live a note about you two the other day. 🙂

  When you say register all your images, I take it you mean everything from commercial work to snapshots of family and friends. For the latter images, is privacy a concern since your submission becomes a public record?

  Also, at the risk of sounding silly: Is it better to register using your full name, i.e., with your middle name or middle initial? Or is it more important to remain consistent with your name once you’ve started?

• #6 by Jack and Ed on July 5, 2012 - 10:37 am

  

  Yes, everything. Since the $35 fee is per application, not per image, it doesn’t affect the cost of you register 10 or 1000 on the same application. As far as privacy, I wouldn’t worry. Very, very, very few images make it to the online library (which is wonderful to go through if you can figure it out). I think you have a much better shot of winning Lotto than having your photo searchable. You can request an image to be sent to you, but you need the file name and the registration number. It’s pricy because they are stretched thin in manpower and if they have to have someone do it, it’ll cost you. Also, we highly recommend you send in a small and highly compressed JPEG, for ease of uploading. In short, I wouldn’t worry.

  As far as your name, depends. If you have a very common name, like Joe or Joan Smith, it might help. When you register, there is a place when you put your name in, to include a birth date. It’s not mandatory, so I skip it, since my name is not that common. If your name is common like John Smith, than the birth date would help distinguish you.

  Jack

• #7 by Claire on July 5, 2012 - 1:00 pm

  

  Thank you very much, that’s very helpful!

  Not needing to weed out personal photos will simplify the process greatly. I sent in a batch following the specs in your book (800 pixels for the long side, etc.), but I think you said 500-700 pixels for the longest side in the webinar. Did I hear that correctly and is it sufficient?

  Thank you for your time,
  Claire

• #8 by Jack and Ed on July 5, 2012 - 3:06 pm

  

  Anywhere from 500 to 800 is fine. Just depends how many you want to send and how big you want the files. A JPEG compression of about 5 is also good. There is no set or ideal size or compression, all you need is to be able to reproduce it in court. When I sued for infringement, we projected the image on a projector.
  The important part is to register them all.

  Jack

• #9 by Claire on July 6, 2012 - 11:28 am

  

  Thank you very much for your help! I really appreciate it.

  Claire

• #10 by Ric Faust on July 25, 2012 - 9:10 am

  

  I wasn’t able to attend the Webinar, but have watched some of the classes on Kelby Training.

  One question that’s eating at me is about whether a person is identifiable. What if they’re shot from the back and you can’t see their face or what if you take a photo of Times Square? I am now carrying model releases, but haven’t prior. If I don’t print the image for sale, but show it on my site is that all right?

  Thanks guys…very valuable information.

• #11 by K. Abdus-Salaam on August 1, 2012 - 8:46 am

  

  Hi guys:

  I would like to sign up/register for the August 15th Webinar with Mr. Greenberg & Mr. Reznicki.

• #12 by Jack and Ed on August 1, 2012 - 8:16 pm

  

  Hi K.
  You need to go to http://tinyurl.com/cz8ue4b to register. And again, it’s free!

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