Financial Trend Blog

You take a picture of a city street. Look closely and you’ll see copyrighted material everywhere in your photo. The obvious copyrights are on the billboard, the newspaper stand and products in the store window. The less obvious copyrights are in the sculptural ornamentation of the lamppost, the patterned fabric of a woman’s skirt and the toy the kid is holding. You will never be able to track down all of these copyright owners to get their permission to use the photo. Are you out of luck if you want to use it commercially? Maybe not.

Copyright protection is the legal right granted to the creator of creative work to be the exclusive party who can exploit that work. What this means is that if an author, playwright, musician, composer, filmmaker, or distributor registers their work with the copyright office they are the only person who has the right to exploit their work for profit or for distribution. Copyright protection has been instituted to protect the creators of these types of works which are generally referred to as intellectual property. These laws do not cover the creator of a work if they have been hired by another individual or party specifically to create a work. This is what is known as a work made for hire, in which case the person who hired the creator will retain the copyright.

When most people consider writing a book, they don’t think
about Trademarks. However, I highly recommend that you
leverage your writing for multiple purposes, and that’s why
registering a Trademark for your concept is a good idea. If
you use your writing as the basis for workshops and other
products, it’s in your best interests to protect your
concepts with a Trademark.

To paraphrase the definition of a Trademark given at the
official web site www.uspto.gov, a Trademark is a symbol, a
word, a phrase, or a design, (or any combination), used to
identify and distinguish the unique source of goods. Note
that a Service Mark has the same definition as a Trademark,
except as related to services instead of products.

Since as photographers, we have always licensed (rented) our photos, it is shocking to us to find a photobuyer assuming that their payment for a photo represents both present and future use of the photo.

Unless a “work-for-hire” agreement is arranged in writing between the photobuyer and the stock photographer, payment for the use of a photo is for one-time rights only.

Given the costs associated with hiring employees, a vast majority of businesses now hire independent contractors to build and/or maintain their websites. This raises a host of legal issues.

First and foremost, it should be a requirement that the person or business developing your site agree to put everything in writing. As with any contractual situation, oral agreements are useless. Handshake agreements and oral promises simply are not enforceable in court. Sad, but true, so get it in writing!

The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U. S. law, but you should still give notice whenever possible. Because prior law did contain such a requirement, however, the use of notice is still relevant to the copyright status of older works.

Under the 1976 Copyright Act, creators of covered works were required to give notice of copyright on the work in question. This requirement was eliminated when the United States signed onto the Berne Convention in March 1989.

Your copyright protections prevents anyone from reproducing or distributing your work without your express permission. Copyrights are usually associated within written work, but they can include dance routines, photos, sculptures, or architecture. The author of the work owns the copyright, and you own the work of any employee completed on your behalf by employees.

You do not have to put a copyright notice on your work, but it is recommended to give notice that you are asserting your ownership of the work. An exception for the use of copyrighted work is made for the purpose of criticism, news reporting, and teaching. Copyright protection lasts for the length of the author’s life plus 70 years.