Just a heads up, various copyright registration filing fees are going up today, May 1st. The one that will affect most photographers is the standard filing fee for collections of unpublished work, which is rising from $35 to $55. If you have one photo, by one photographer, then it stays at $35, but if you do as Jack does, registering hundreds or thousands of images at one time, be prepared to pony up an additional $20. Even at $55, it’s still the best protection you can have for your images and we encourage everyone to register everything.
You can read more about the increases at http://www.copyright.gov/fls/sl04.pdf
#1 by DonS on May 1, 2014 - 10:45 am
Just as we tend to get our taxes in at the last minute (who, me?), so did I manage to pay the old fee at the last second. Incredibly, eCO scheduled a system upgrade at 11:30pm on Apr. 30! I hit the Pay button at 11:30pm exactly. Seems it went through, so hopefully I can upload thousands of images today. Hey, $20 is $20. 🙂
#2 by Edward C. Greenberg on May 14, 2014 - 6:39 pm
With that timing we suggest a trip to your local casino ASAP!
#3 by Matt on January 12, 2015 - 6:19 pm
I’d like to know how Jack registers hundreds or thousands of photographs at once. And I mean that seriously, as in the mechanics. I’ve submitted zip files of photographs, and the last time I did, the ECO notified me the submission had been changed to be a copyright of a collection of images. huh??
#4 by Jack and Ed on January 13, 2015 - 8:34 am
Matt, I’ve registered hundreds, thousands, and over ten thousand images (several times), all as a collection of unpublished images. Ed and I have outlined the process in our Kelby Training videos (which we’re going down to update next month), books and articles. It’s kinda hard to really answer you without knowing exactly what you’re doing. I create small JPEGs, 600 to 800 pixels on the longest side, with a compression of 5, and then the folders are zipped. If I need several folders to upload, I create several folders. When I do 10K of images, it might take 5 or 6 or more folders. All the images are unpublished and in an organized group. The rules are it needs to be an “orderly” registration, but that’s fairly easy. Also, the file titles are somewhat descriptive of what the image is, generally. Like an 11K submission was all taken in Africa and each file was labeled “Africa” with a sequence number. Hope that helps. Call the Copyright Office and ask them what the issue is with your submission. While it sometimes takes a while to get through, once you do they are very friendly and helpful folks.
#5 by Matt on January 27, 2015 - 10:29 am
Mostly I think I’m confused a little about exactly what buttons to push on the ECO uploader when I’m uploading a zip file from a shoot or multiple zip files from a few different events. I’m also a bit at a loss on the 3-month thing vs. first publish date. Title 17 is not (IMO) worded very concretely in that area, and I’ve seen different lawyers offering different advice on that. E.g., I shoot a weekly open mic even, gratis, and under the Creative Commons Attribution license. I’m not super-concerned, but I’m curious how this situation would be handled. Turnaround is shoot Monday, upload to event organizer on Wednesday, and selects published on Friday. I’m not going to pay the registration fee on a weekly basis (unless I get enough business to support that, or to roll it into other uploads), but it’d be nice to get those uploaded at some point to ECO. So how would you handle that situation, where the actual publish date is week to week for each batch?
Hopefully some of these questions will be answered in your upcoming KelbyOne training, for which I’ll be keeping a weather eye out!
#6 by Jack and Ed on January 27, 2015 - 11:50 am
Matt, I’ll try and answer your upload question on email, but the upload screen is straightforward, once you get the hang of it.
As far as when to register, you might want to register every shot that is published separately, every 3 months. If published and within a 3 month window, you’re covered. If you register one day after 3 months of the date of publication, you are not covered as well.
Then register all the other images that were not used as unpublished, once or twice a year, or as often as you can. That’s the best I can offer as far as how the law currently exists.
As far as a CC license, I personally think it’s a waste. If someone breaks the license, there is no penalty, so people do. The only recourse you have is exactly what you have without it, your copyright and the registration. There is no protection so to speak with their license. The other issue with their licenses, again in my opinion, is that’s it’s confusing and not defined well. What constitutes commercial use? Their license muddies the waters and then places you in a position of asking your intent with the images. No really good for you if questioned. In short, I’m not a fan of Creative Commons and their licensing. As Mark Halpern pointed out in a great WSJ article he wrote, CC is underwritten by some very huge companies that are more interested in using our work for free, than protecting our rights.
Jack