How do I copyright my Photography?
In the future I want to sell my photography.
I’ve heard that copyrighting my pictures is a good route to take.
and of course, I don’t know much about copyrighting in general.
Where exactly can you get copyrights for photography?
Do I even need to copyright my photography?
Thanks.
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3 Answers
You automatically possess the copyright at the moment you take the photo. As long as you have the ability to prove you took the photo, you legally have the copyright.
However, filing a copyright with the Copyright Office entitles you to more legal avenues should someone steal your work, including the right to punitive damages. You can find the instructions and forms for visual art works at http://www.copyright.gov/register/visual.html
I would really urge you to consider a Creative Commons license instead of ”© all rights reserved”. You would retain authorship (so your work will still be protected against undesired use) and still be able to make money off your work, but at the very least you would allow the redistribution of your work, which, far from produce loss, could only help increase your popularity and visibility.
There are six different licenses, each one of them has their pros and cons according to what you would like to do with your work and what you would like other people to be able to do with it. As I wrote, the most restrictive license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivatives) only allows redistribution; on the other hand, the least restrictive (Attribution) only requires that anyone who use your work to give you the credit for it.
I love the first two comments, very true…
But you could also just use photoshop to add a little signature on the corner of the photo.. That’s what I do with my pics, at least hehe
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