Cool, two of my phots were chosen as photos of the week.

[Malaxos1]

I was pretty excited when someone shot me an email to give me the news. Very cool. Here is a link to the photos...Dean

http://groups.msn.com/ProfessionalPhotoTalk/winnerspicoftheweek.msnw

[defordphoto]

Congrats! I was also going to comment on the Multnomah Falls shot too, being a local...That is one of the nicest shots of the falls I have seen. I've always wanted to go there and do a stitch photo and see if that would work at the falls.

Very nice...

[CyberDyneSystems]

Great shots! Congrats! :)

[Ballen Photo]

I was pretty excited when someone shot me an email to give me the news. Very cool. Here is a link to the photos...Dean


Excellent! Looks like you deserved it. :D
..........Bruce

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Cool, congrats.

[CoolToolGuy]

Congratulations - I especially like the shot of the falls.

[Malaxos1]

Congratulations - I especially like the shot of the falls.

Me too, I have had quite a few people asking for a print. So at $75 for a 12x18 I am close to $1000.

[LazyPhotographer]

Nice job! Congratulations..

[msvadi]

congratulations, nice pictures!

[G3]

Way to go! Very, very nice photos, by the way.

[Malaxos1]

Way to go! Very, very nice photos, by the way.

Man, I just went back to the site and found three photos out of four were the photo of the week.

[Tom W]

I hadn't gotten around to looking until now -congrads. I've already seen the great waterfall picture, but that cat portriat is excellent as well. Nice!

[mjordan]

Hi Dean, congratulations. I just went to the Photo Talk site for the first time. Interesting site.

I also read where you are selling your falls image. I tought I'd bring something up, just in case you hadn't throught about it. Copyright. There is probably a pretty good chance that that shot is already copyrighted by someone. If this is true, then that means you wouldn't be able to sell the image you took. I've done a little bit of research into copyrighting photographic images because I got infringed on big time a year and half ago. One of the things I read about was about the copyright of famous and well photographed places. Whom ever owns the first copyright, owns the copyright. And those the moment in time that you took the picture is unique, the picture you took is not.

I'm not a lawyer and I don't know for sure, but I do know that it's probably a question you should at least check into. Or not. It's up to you.
:lol:


Again, great pictures and congratulations.

Mike

[Malaxos1]

I have not thought about a photo of the place itself being copyrighted. Hmmm. I do have a bout a dozen people who have asked for a print. Man I would love to just send one out to them. Boy $85 x a dozen or so is some pretty good dough. However, someone sent me an email saying to get it copyrighted before I sell the prints. They added that one of the customers themselves may copyright it and make money off it. I noticed you live close to me...Dean

[mjordan]

Yes, I live in Hillsboro.

I register all of my images with the Copyright office ever since I got burned. Even though my image was copyrighted, the woman that took it was worth millions and had lawyers on staff (don't ask me why she used my image instead of getting her own). The two lawyers I talked to both said that yes, I'd probably win, since it was pretty clear cut, but it could cost me up to $50k to get to that point and there was no gurentee that I'd be awarded enough to cover it all. Since my war chest was about $49k short at the time, there wasn't a lot I could do. But I now send a CD of my images into be registered every 3 months, or right away if I'm going to be selling the images. You ought to be doing the same. It only costs $30 per CD of images and takes about 10 minutes to fill out the form. Even if it's proven later that some of your images might not be covered under the copyright, at least you are registered for those that are covered.



Mike

[Malaxos1]

So Mike, do you have any info on the place that you use for copyrighting? I think it sounds like something I need to do. Too many people believe that adding a copyright label or inscription makes them copyrighted...Dean

[mjordan]

Your pictures are copyrighted the moment they are taken and you have all the legal protection under the copyright laws. The single biggest benifit to having your images registered is that if you get infringed on and have to go to court, the infringing party get to pay all court and legal fees for both of you. And any IP lawyer that would represent them knows this. Both lawyers I talked to asked the same question right off the bat... "is this image registered?". As soon as I said no, I could see they lost interest.

Here is the web address of the copyright office: http://www.copyright.gov/

It has a bunch of information and also the forms. You need a VA form (Visual Arts). And there is even a VA Short form.

If you need some help or have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me. mjordan@europa.com

When you send in a CD the registration takes affect the day they receive it, although it could be 6 months before you get the certificate of registration. So you will want to send it delivery conformation. Then when you see it was delivered on the USPS web page, you print that page off and save it with your copy of the form and CD.

Let me know if I can help.

Mike

[westgorge]

Thanks for the information! I have seen other posts about getting a copyright for photos. But, the information that you have provided is much more detailed than anything I have seen before now. I have a growing library of photos and am very interested in pursuing publication and or selling some without losing my ownership of the original image. Time to get busy putting them on CD and getting the form completed and mailed. Thanks again!!

Jeff
Troutdale, Oregon

(P.S.: I spent quite a bit of time in the gorge this weekend getting great waterfall pics. It's a great place to live!)

[robekert]

I also read where you are selling your falls image. I tought I'd bring something up, just in case you hadn't throught about it. Copyright. There is probably a pretty good chance that that shot is already copyrighted by someone. If this is true, then that means you wouldn't be able to sell the image you took. I've done a little bit of research into copyrighting photographic images because I got infringed on big time a year and half ago. One of the things I read about was about the copyright of famous and well photographed places. Whom ever owns the first copyright, owns the copyright. And those the moment in time that you took the picture is unique, the picture you took is not.

I'm not a lawyer and I don't know for sure, but I do know that it's probably a question you should at least check into. Or not. It's up to you.
:lol: Mike

If I understand you correctly the following example would be true. I take a shot of the Empire State Bldg. I am the first to register a shot of the building. NO one else can sell images of the Empire State Bldg. This does not sound possible. I am skeptical that this is true.

I also checked out the Visual Arts Copyright Application. The application seems to be $30 per item. A CD of images would be thousands of dollars to register.

I am not a lawyer but something sounds incorrect here.

Rob

[mjordan]

Rob, you can put a bunch of images on the CD and register it all together. The requirement is that they all meet the same criteria, either all published or all non-published, all be by the same author, and a couple of other things I forget. Oh, and you have to get the CD a unique title which is what the group will be registered under. And they have to be images that can be seen with common programs today, so jpegs will work, as long as the images can be viewed so that the subject is recognizable should it be required to prove ownership. And as many as you can stuff on the CD only costs $30. My first CD had several thousand images on it and my 2nd two were more like 1500 each.

There is a circular on the Copyright Website that takes about using a CD with a group of images on it.

Also, if you have never publised your images (and publish has a specific meaning to the copyright office), they can be registered anytime. If they have been published, they have to be registered within 90 days of that time. The criteria for being published is sold, leased, rented, or given to an agent that would sell, lease or rent the images. I specificly asked the Copyright office about web sites, if that counted as being published and they said no, that just because images have been seen by the public, that does not mean they are considered published as far as registration goes.

If your images are not published, you only need to send in 1 CD. If they have been published, you need to send in 2 copies of the CD but still only one form and $30.

As for someone taking pictures of a place, there has been numours articles about how the city of San Fransico has copyrighted all the famous icons around there, like the Golden Gate Bridge. And there was an article in a magazine about some of the pictures Ansal Adams took and some he copyrighted and some there was another photographer that beat him to the spots. I'm not a lawyer either, but the copyright law (once you dig into it) talks about that a person can not registered or claim copyright on an image that can be recognized as being the same image registered by another person. If Dean wanted to, he could e-mail the copyright office and ask them. They have been quick to respond to the questions I've sent in. And they might know of a circular of theirs that covers this.

Mike

[mjordan]

You are welcome, Jeff. I just wish I had learned about this before I a woman used one of my pictures in her commercial ad in two issues of a major magazine a year and half ago. Had I been registered, I would probably own a very nice camera system with lots of nice L glass. The lawyers called it "a blatant case of copyright infringment for profit" which meant I could also have claimed her gross potential profit from the use of the pictures. Which could have been over $20k alone right there. But since I didn't have them registered, I couldn't afford the cost of taking it to court and her dragging it out. So I used the experience as a big wake up call and now get everything registered.

I've been trying to get back up the gorge but haven't had a chance. I made it up to Mt. Hood and got pictures up there last month, and I want to get back now that we have clear skys again and take some more pictures. I like going to Hood River and taking pictures of the kite boarders and wind surfers. I plan on having a 100-400 L lens this summer and hope to get a lot better pictures than I did with my 70-200 4.0L the last two summers. I also do a lot of the Dragon Boat races around Portland. I got into that last year and they even used me as the offical video photographer last summer at one of the races. I got to start and stop the finish line video camera and then I took pictures with my 10D the rest of the time. I also got the only pictures (it was just out of the video camera area) of a pretty good crash that got shown to all the teams as an example of how a boat can get away from you in the current. I got a lot of exposure on that, which I hope to take advantage of during this seasons Dragon Boat races.

Mike

[ShootTechPan]

Mike, thanks for the awesome info.