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I believe I’ve written on this subject before. However, someone raised a question again about copyright at the recent STC seminar so I thought I would give a short recap on the subject.

Copyright protection exists on your images at the same moment you click the shutter. Your image immediately becomes your property unless you took the image while working under a “work for hire” agreement that you signed prior to executing the work. For any work created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection extends from that moment of creation until 70 years after the creator’s death (at which point, who cares, except some distant relative trying to make a buck off of your hard earned sweat.)

Very early on, Hugh Hefner made the decision that he wanted Playboy to own as much of the photography and artwork as possible created for the magazine. So we either hired our photographers as employees (which automatically put them into a work for hire agreement) or we specified “Work for Hire” on the assignment sheets that we issued and insisted photographers sign before they did an assignment for us. There were, of course, many photographers who resisted selling all rights to their work. However, Playboy paid premium rates and had the pages and subject matter that were difficult to resist. So Playboy owned at least 90% of the photographs ever published in the magazine.

We made a few exceptions for very high profile photographers who we wanted or who were wanted by very high profile celebrities. Even then, we were usually able to negotiate the right to republish the photos a certain number of times or limit other ways the photographer might be able to utilize the images.

However, in most of your cases, you will be the copyright owner even if you do nothing further than click the shutter. It is always recommended that you use the copyright symbol (small letter c inside a circle), the year the work was created and the name (your name) as the owner of the copyright. You can put it on the photo or under the photo.

I can understand that some of you think by putting your name very prominently on your photo you are getting a bit more protection. However, to a prospective client, it often damages the impact of the photo. You might want to think about the who and where your image will be viewed before deciding how to label it.
What should you do if you see that someone is making an unauthorized use of your images? First thing is to try a DMCA Take Down Notice. Google it to see what it is. It’s your way of saying “Hey, that’s mine. Don’t use it.” If the unauthorized use is blatant or repeated, you may need to resort to a Cease and Desist Demand Letter. Again, you can google to get the format. This letter implies the threat of imminent legal action. Hopefully, that will work because actually hiring a lawyer and suing someone is an expensive and time consuming process.

You can further protect yourself by registering copyright on an image or group of images with the US Copyright Office. Go to www.copyright.gov. It’s not so very difficult or expensive but it won’t stop anyone from infringing. What it does do is open the possibility of punitive damages if you do go so far as to sue someone. I think for most of you, going through this process is probably not worth the time and trouble.

There are several web services that can make following up on your images easier: Myows, Safe Creation, My Free Copyright are a few. There are also some steps you can take to disable right click on your images that will keep the rank amateurs from copying your work. However, as we all know, for every computer protection, someone has or will devise a way to get around it.

At Playboy, we had a copyright policeman (actually a woman) who sent tons of DMCAs and Cease and Desists to infringers. Even though we had our own robust legal department, we seldom sued since the infringers often had a way of disappearing into the night before we caught them.

The worst case scenario is to never be infringed. That means your work is simply not good enough to steal. That’s why we have STC—to make certain we help you become a good enough photographer so that everyone wants to steal (or better yet buy) your images.

~Gary Cole

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