In the beginning of the year I wrote, “Have You Created Your 2015 Metadata Copyright Preset?” reminding us to update our copyright information for the New Year. This quick tip made sure we added our copyright information to every photo we imported into Lightroom. Our next step to protect our images is to register them with the Library of Congress. Lightroom makes this final process just as fast and easy.
I thought my images were already protected?
The moment you capture an image, you automatically own the copyright of the image. If someone violates that right by using your image without your consent, you can take legal action. However, you need to register your image before a judge will hear the case. Let me stop for a moment and say I’m not a Lawyer, I am a photographer. I received this information over the years from reliable sources, Jack Reznicki and Ed Greenburg. Ed is a Intellectual Property Lawyer and Jack is commercial photographer and one of the most sought after educators. You can find more information on their blog, The Copyright Zone. For years they have been educating photographers, including myself on copyright issues.
When should I register my images?
There is a small fee of $55.00 to register up to a 500 MB per ZIP file of images. Depending on the types of images you take and how many will determines how often you should batch register your images. If you are part of the media and the images are time sensitive, you should register them immediately. Its best to register your work before you publish it.
Published images, especially a collection are a little harder to register, but shouldn’t make a difference or deter anyone.
While there is a 500mb limit, you shouldn’t send large files. A small JPEG, 600-800px on the longest side, 72ppi, a JPEG compression of 5 or 6, and then in a zipped folder. So you can get 10,000 images that way.
Lightroom export preset
Once installed follow these simple steps:
- Select your images from inside Lightroom.
- Right click on a selected image.
- Click export and select Library of Congress.
- Choose a folder to save the images. I created a folder called 2015Q1-Prepare for-Registration
The selected images are exported to our Prepare for Registration folder with the proper requirements we need. Use your favorite zip program to compress your images. I use WinZip.
3 Steps to Registration
The United States Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress. You need to complete 3 simple steps to register your photos.
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Payment
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Image deposit
Open a new Case
Login to your account and create a new case. You’ll have 12 sections to complete. Each section only takes a few minutes. Below is an example of my recent submission. As I mentioned earlier, Im not a lawyer. This example works for me; a photographer living in Florida. Its best to consult a lawyer in your state and follow The Copyright Zone with Jack and Ed.
Type of Work: Work of Visual Art
Titles:
- Type: Title of work being registered.
- Title of this work: 2015 Q1 The Assassin
Publication/Completion: No
Authors: Add me
Claimants: Add me
Limitation of Claim: Click continue
Rights & Permissions: Add me
Correspondent: Add me
Mail Certificate: Add me
Special Handling: Skip
Review Submission: Make sure everything is correct
Payment and Upload your Zip file
After you review your submission, the final step is to enter your payment information and upload your zip file. Your images are now in the final stage of being registered.
Extra Resources
- The Copyright Zone: A Legal Guide For Photographers and Artists In The Digital Age
- Its Fast and Easy to Install Lightroom Presets
- Have You Created Your 2015 Metadata Copyright Preset?
- The Copyright Zone
- United States Copyright Office
*Feature image tashatuvango / Dollar Photo Club
Thank you for this!!
Remember the internet is international – not just for people in the US. This advice on copyright only applies to the law in the US. There is no need for photographers outside of the US to register with the Library of Congress. This should be made very clear at the beginning of the article.
Bill,
Yes this pertains to the U.S. However other countries can register their work to take advance of the U.S. judicial system.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Reblogged this on Miechelle Photography.
Thanks for putting this together, … very helpful!
Thank you. This is extremely helpful.
This is a small point, but ppi is meaningless with regards to image size. It’s just a field in the EXIF that gets ignored whenever you tell your image editor to use a different value.
Publication = No? I keep struggling with this. I’m certainly not going 3 months without “publishing” photographs. Which is what the advice to register every 3 months seems to imply we need to do, to be able to upload a zip file of 10,000 photographs. Registering collections as Published is also problematic, for an en masse registration. The photographs from different shoots all likely have different publication dates. The ECO registration site only allows 1 (one) publication date to be provided. So, a photographer could either perjur him/herself, or register once for each publication date (at $55 a pop), or… Read more »
The site is designed to accept multiple uploads. You might find some help to your comment by contacting the help desk at Copyright – 202-707-3000.
Their direction was very clear in my experience to use the last date of the last work published in the upload.
Here is a quick overview – http://www.copyright.gov/eco/eco-tutorial-standard.pdf
Any guidance or suggestions on whether photos should be registered “as shot” or after they are edited? Sometimes it may be months before I get around to editing an image and I think the law covers derivitive works from the original, so I am guessing it is OK to register “pre-post”.