I p[ost pictures of my family, of beer and of other things on a personal webpage. Are these pictures protected by copyright in any way or considered public domain? in other words, if my picture were to pop up on someone’s website making fun of me or something, do i have any rights over their use of my picture?
If you create a photograph, you automatically own the copyright to it. Making it public does not change this. Somebody copying the picture and reusing it themselves is no different to if they took one from CNN’s site. Of course, this goes on all the time, and is rarely worried about. It’s when people start making money, or start misusing or editing photos, that a legal fuss is created.
In short, yes you retain the copyright, but there’s not much you can do to protect it. However, it’s always a good idea to put something on the page (such as your name), to make it unambiguously non-anonymous.
The convention adopted for copyright notices is the C in a circle with the words Copyright, your name, and the year the work was created. This is an international convention agreed to in what-year-I-forget. A lot of people add “All Rights Reserved” but strictly speaking that is not necessary since all rights are always reserved under a copyright anyway.
IANAL but I did some work with one once on corporate copyright issues.
It is always possible to formally register your copyright with the government but that would be overkill for your purposes.
Also be aware that fair use generally allows copyrighted material to be used for private use (like taping a CD so you can listen to it in your car that doesn’t have a CD player), excerpts for review (like quoting a paragraph from a book in a book review), or for satirical purposes (not sure of the legal specifics on that one). If someone took your picture and drew a moustache on it then you might have a hard time fighting it, unless “making fun” of you crosses the line into libel.
You could always use ‘watermarks’ if you’re afraid of others stealing your images.
Well, i’m not concerned about them stealing my images… but if i wanted to use a picture i found on the net to create some kind of fake story… like the onion… could they come after me… even if i didn’t use their real names?
In general, a creator holds a copyright in (the expression of) a creative (non-factual) work as soon as it is “fixed in a tangible medium.” You don’t have to put a copyright notice on your work in order to claim copyright protection. (You might have to do it, as well as register your work, in order to win money for copyright infringement, though.) Current international law, which the U.S. is now part of, requires no “formalities” in order for an author to retain rights.
However, your idea also implicates privacy rights and defamation… You don’t want to go around using someone else’s likeness or image without their permission, especially if you’re going to portray them in an untrue bad light. This rule obviously doesn’t apply to public figures or newsworthy issues.
What I’m trying to warn you against is the case of a local television station that did a story on prostitution and in order to illustrate their script, showed images of random young women in the street. One such woman successfully won a suit against the station for falsely portraying her in connection with prostitution.
This “convention” - in quotes because it was not a mere convention but written into the law as a requirement to maintain copyright - was completely removed in the 1996 Copyright Act.
As others have said, the law today states that copyright is yours automatically from the time you create a work, not even from the time you make it public. You do not have to label it or give any warnings. It’s yours and it’s copyright.
You don’t even have to register your copyright, although you can only get actual monetary damages in case of violation if you don’t. Registration gives you greater leeway to sue for punitive damages.
Putting the copyright symbol and date next to a work is now a mere convention. People do it because people always have done it, but it means nothing legally.
'86, I think, not '96, as part of the implementing legislation for the Berne Convention.
–Cliffy
OK. Correction. the U.S. became a Berne signatory in 1988, and eliminated the requirement for notice as of March 1, 1989.
The 1996 revision to the Copyright Act incorporated the Berne provisions.
Hypothetical situation:
I’m an amateur photographer who takes a picture and posts it on my website. A caption under the photo says, “Chukhung took this photo in 2004.” I don’t register the copyright of my photograph, nor do I use the word “copyright” anywhere on my website.
My neighbor takes a copy of my photograph and posts it on his website without my permission and without crediting me. He even goes so far as to include a copy of my picture in each of the 200 Christmas cards he sends out.
I’m not a professional photographer, and I never expected to make any money from my photograph, but I am a little upset at all the copies of it that my neighbor made. Can I sue him in small claims court or do I have to go to a “regular” court? And since I didn’t register the copyright and I “can only get actual monetary damages,” what, if anything, can I expect from a civil suit? Just a court order telling my neighbor to stop copying my photos?
The jurisdiction of small claims courts, where they exist, are defined by the laws of the state in question. In general, claims under the Copyright Act can be heard in state courts, although it’s more usual to see them being brought in (or being removed to) federal courts.
Generally if you have not registered your copyright and the infringer hasn’t made any money by selling copies of your work, you will most probably be limited to equitable relief, that is, an injunction. So the answer to your last question is “yes.”
Actually, I want to retract part of that. State courts can’t hear copyright claims unless the copyright issue is just part of a counterclaim and not the claim in chief.
Basically, you have the right to take that hypothetical neighbor to court for stealing your images. Because you do not sell your work, though, you would have a hard time claiming damages in a monetary sense. However, if you had a ‘buy prints of your favorite photos of mine’ section on your site, you could claim damages from theft due to loss of a sale. If you are strictly amateur, though, they can just do the injunction and order a cessation of use.
Now, if someone steals an image and makes MONEY off of it (even indirectly, like getting a job by presenting a portfolio of your work), you can probably get some dough.
I pay close attention to this, as I am an amateur photographer who has a photography website with my photos on it. FWIW, I have a small copyright notice on each photo in the corner in unobtrusive text, and a copyright notice with “All Rights Reserved” on the footer of each page of my site. Because it’s at the bottom of the page, in a relatively out of the way (but quite visible) spot, people will see my copyright notice about 200 times if they look at my whole site.
Here’s a good summary of what you can claim with registration and without. I’m just borrowing pieces of the summary, not recommending the services of the site, about which I know nothing.
Note that the proper term is statutory damages, not punitive damages as I said earlier.
Jman, whether you have copyright notices on your site 200, 1, or 0 times makes no difference. Without registration you still lose the ability to obtain statutory damages. chukhung, however, could get statutory damages even though no money is involved, in his example. In reality, of course, virtually no one goes through the time and expense involved in registering copyright in such situations. An injunction is the best anyone could expect.
To take my hypothetical example a step further:
After my neighbor copies my photo for his website, let’s imagine that I then go and register the copyright for that photo. A few months later, my neighbor makes an additional 200 copies for his Christmas cards. Can I receive statutory damages and/or lawyer fees for that later infringement? Am I under any obligation to notify my neighbor that I registered the copyright on my photo?
And what evidence is needed to prove that an infringement is “willful?”
You will be entitled to statutory damages for all infringement taking place after registration. For infringement taking place prior to registration, you will have to prove actual damages.
Registration itself acts as notice to the public.