Dooks everyone,
Just a word of advice from someone who has learned copyright lessons the
hard way.  (shouting from the rooftops)  PLEASE. REGISTER. YOUR. STUFF.
WITH. THE. LOC (Library of Congress).!!!  I cannot emphasize this enough!
It is easy to do, relatively inexpensive, and in the long run is just
about the best thing you can do to protect your artistic assets because
if you produce art for long enough, the odds are that soemone will try
to rip you off.
 
You can go to www.loc.gov and head over to the U.S. Copyright Office
section, where you can get all the forms you need.  You can make color
copies, photographs or printouts of all the work you wish to register
(has to be within ninety days of completion of the piece), write a check
for $30, and mail it out to the address provided.  Presto!  You are
now entitled to $100,000 in damages per infringement if you can prove
someone infringed your copyright (generally speaking, depending on the
extenuating circumstances, etc.).  If you don't register, you can still
pursue a lawsuit against the infringer but would only be entitled to
actual damages, which can be piddling & difficult to prove.  If a
circumstance should arise that would cause you to hire a lawyer in
order to defend the integrity of your copyright, just be aware that
many lawyers won't take your case unless you've registered your stuff -
the simple reason being that there is no ca$h money in it for them.
 
I was recently burnt big time by a newspaper I used to shoot for.  They
decided commandeer the copyright of all the photographs ever created
by the photo staff and start selling reprints to the public without
giving the photogs a cut (and this is after paying us all EXTREMELY
meager wages - we derived the majority of our income from selling photo
reprints).  I was all ready to sue the pants off of the company and
retire to a tropical island by the age of 25; however, because I didn't
bother to register my stuff, I was, shall we say, poop out of luck.
The only lawyer I could get to even have a phone conversation with me
said that we could chase them for the actual profits they made from the
images, but it after the legal fees were paid (wouldn't want those guys
to go hungry :-P)  I would probably end up with about $50 to show for it
all.  Lesson learned!
 
So in summation; please, please, please register your stuff with the LOC.
It seems to me that nowadays people expect artists to simply give away
their work for nothing, and I am fighting hard to reverse that trend.  In
my opinion, the more artists who bullishly defend their work, the more
the public will be educated on the subject of intellectual property - and
what could be more educational than a good hard slap upside the head with
a lawsuit?  Tee hee...
 
Writing a $30 check as we speak,
Jessica
 
Jessica Manson Morton
Whimsy Creative Photography!
28 Stafford St.
Plymouth, MA 02360
(508) 747-5505
[log in to unmask]
www.whimsyphoto.com
[Posted in FML issue 4425]