I shot a wedding and some pre-wedding events this past weekend. I was not the paid photographer at the ceremony, it was a favor to a friend who was concerned after her photo agency pulled some sketchy moves at the last minute. The paid professional seemed nice and I introduced myself to ensure I wasn't stepping on any toes, but he said it was fine. After I saw him start duplicating my creative shots, I was glad that I brought my camera.

I'm no pro, but most of the set turned out extremely well for my amateur antics. I published a gallery online for all interested parties to see, along with some printable sizes (not full size). No problem, happy to do it.

Not 48 hours after the gallery was published, I've found nearly the whole gallery reproduced on Facebook and MySpace in some wedding party members' photo albums, and huge batches of pictures are being emailed around with no mention of who took them. I have no intent of collecting money on any of these, but I (naively perhaps) didn't watermark them in hopes that the bride would be able to better use them.

Should I be concerned about my copyright? Trademarks, I know, will actually become invalid if you do not defend them - does copyright law work the same way? Am I just being silly to worry, if I don't care about the profits? I could probably politely request that the galleries stop being reproduced elsewhere.

You probably want to post this in the Wedding forum since they deal with issues like this daily. That said, if you don't want photos to get reproduced elsewhere, don't put them on the internet, especially without your watermark...

Well, you're not making any money from it, they are just emailing them for personal use, I really doubt that anyone would try to sell the wedding photos (what for?) or would be able to make any money from them anyway, so relax, sit back and enjoy that you made the bride and groom happy. The alternative is to start chasing all the guests and piss them, and the B&G, off.

You have to actually copyright the images to be able to protect them. You migh want to check this out...

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1645

Bernie wrote:
You probably want to post this in the Wedding forum since they deal with issues like this daily. That said, if you don't want photos to get reproduced elsewhere, don't put them on the internet, especially without your watermark...

I have no issues with the photos being used/reproduced, I just found the entire replication of the galleries a little disturbing.

panos.v wrote:
Well, you're not making any money from it, they are just emailing them for personal use, I really doubt that anyone would try to sell the wedding photos (what for?) or would be able to make any money from them anyway, so relax, sit back and enjoy that you made the bride and groom happy.

That's what I was leaning towards, I was only concerned that copyright law may work like trademark law, where allowing unrestricted usage of the file basically removes any rights you have to the trademark.

Thanks for the link, gman, I'll look at it when I can actually watch the videos.

gman1339 wrote:
You have to actually copyright the images to be able to protect them. You migh want to check this out...

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1645


+1
Excellent

I get this a bit with the photos Ive taken but I find it quite flattering

As long as these people arent trying to pass off the photo as theirs or making any money off them (hahaha) then I dont have any problems.

I also put a water mark on my photos so people know where they came from.

Mailman

Edited by MailmanNZ on Jul 16, 2008 at 08:24 PM GMT

gman1339 wrote:
You have to actually copyright the images to be able to protect them.


Under US law they are automatically copyrighted by the photographer the instant the photo is taken. You can REGISTER your copyright if you want to have a little more legal oomph in a dispute, but the copyrigyht already belongs to the OP.

binary visions wrote: I was only concerned that copyright law may work like trademark law,

No, you actually have to register a trademark. You do not have to register copyright to have it.

Chalk it up to experience. Images from pro and non-pro shooters are grabbed and uploaded to places like MySpace.

Thanks guys.

My gut was to leave it alone, which I am doing, and next time I'll just watermark 'em. Sounds like that was the right instinct.

Incidentally, I bought a 75-150mm f/3.5 Series E on eBay for $50 and it worked phenomenally well for the wedding. It looks like it was manufactured this year - not a scratch or a rub mark on it.

God Bless the masses who don't want to deal with manual focus.

binary visions wrote:
God Bless the masses who don't want to deal with manual focus.

Amen!

plnelson wrote:
binary visions wrote: I was only concerned that copyright law may work like trademark law,

No, you actually have to register a trademark. You do not have to register copyright to have it.


Did you watch the second video? Copyright cases are held in Federal court. You are required to have a registered copyright or your case will be thrown out of court. If you want to bring a copyright case to court you better have the image in question registered. Edward Greenberg speaks on this subject all over the place. I think he knows what's going on.

You can say you have copyright but you have no legal legs to stand on without it being registered. Let's just say you need to have it registered to defend it in court.

panos.v wrote:
Well, you're not making any money from it, they are just emailing them for personal use, I really doubt that anyone would try to sell the wedding photos (what for?) or would be able to make any money from them anyway, so relax, sit back and enjoy that you made the bride and groom happy. The alternative is to start chasing all the guests and piss them, and the B&G, off.

+1

well said.