digital images copyrights

[DR2000]

First of all I wanted to say that this site seems to be a great resource. I always have a lot of questions in legal matters, and no right person to ask.

I've had this one problem for quite some time now.

I have a site which contains a library of car pictures. All those pictures I took myself. Do I have to do anything to copyright each one of them? I update the library often, and it would be hard to be filling copyrights or something for each one.

The problem is there is one site that likes to take images from my library, and I can't seem to make anything. I contacted the guy, and I guess he considered my requests to take it off a joke.

Then I contacted the owner of the server who hosts his site. He said that I should get over it, it's just a pic.

Also he told me that the only way he'll tell the guy to remove it is through court.

The I looked up the companies that provide internet connections for the server. Here are the statements in their policies:

"Compliance With Law.

Customer shall not post, transmit, re-transmit or store material on or
through any of Services or Products which, in the sole judgment of the
Company (i) is in violation of any local, state, federal or non-United
States law or regula-tion, (ii) threatening, obscene, indecent, defamatory
or that other-wise could adversely affect any individual, group or entity
(collectively, "Persons") or (iii) violates the rights of any person,
including rights protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other
intellectual property or similar laws or regulations including, but not
limited to, the installation or distribution of "pirated" or other software
products that are not appro-priately licensed for use by Customer. Customer
shall be responsible for determining what laws or regulations are applicable
to its use of the Services and Products."

and another company:

"Illegal use
The network may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution
or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation
is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by
copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used
without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory,
constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws."

So what would be my next step? And do I have copyrights to my pictures? If not, how can I protect them?

Thank you very much for your help.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I'll provide a more detailed reply later today, but suffice it to say that the webmaster/host is asking for trouble. What you want to do is send this guy a notice as per the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which may impute liability to a webmaster/host for knowingly providing a resource to distribute infringing material when proper notice is given. If it's no big deal for him to make money from a client who is just posting a few measly photographs, he won't mind paying the value now would he? I wager he will!

You do want to copyright your photographs. Ill need to look this up, but photographs do have a special section to register (as I'm sure you are aware) and there is, at least with regard to web sites, a 90 day window which one can continue to add materials to a registration. I'm not sure how it would work here and whether you might be able to consider this a dynamic collection.

 

[DR2000]

Thanks for your time. I can't wait to hear your more detailed reply.

Could you please elaborate on the issue of copyrighting digital images, because I'm not familiar with this stuff at all. All the images that I take only exist in digital form. I add new pictures to the site weekly, sometimes in big quantities.

Thanks again.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Let us start with one at a time. You will definitely want to send the host a letter, certified return receipt, about the infringement. Under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, 17 USC 512, you need to do the following:

(3)ELEMENTS OF NOTIFICATION.—

(A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider that includes substantially the following:

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.
(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.
(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.
(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

We will have the DMCA online as reference in the coming week. Regarding your notice to the host, there is no question that you want to reference the substance of your conversation with the host and that he said that it was just a picture and no big deal, go away, etc.

Note however, many hosts do not take such cease and desist letters seriously unless the letter is sent by an attorney or copyright enforcement organization. If you find that you aren't meeting with success, feel free to contact TheLaw.com and it can be done for you most economically. The goal here is to put the law into your hands and have an attorney intervene only when necessary.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

The information with regard to registering a copyright for web sites is located at:

http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ66.html

The information with regard to registering a copyright for photographs is located at:

http://www.loc.gov/copyright/fls/fl107.pdf

The information of the latter is in PDF format and you may wish to download it and view separately. Hope this helps and let us know how things turn out.

 

[DR2000]

Thank you very much for your help.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

One last thing (and you are welcome! ) -- if you send a notice it should be by a verifiable method such as certified return receipt or via overnight mail with a recognized courier that can provide a record of delivery.