McIlvaine Law Firm » Special Offer for Photograph Copyright Registration

Special Offer for Photograph Copyright Registration

The McIlvaine Law Firm, LLC now offers a service tailored for copyright registration of photographs. Intended clients include professional photographers and print and internet publications. This discounted copyright registration service is only available for photographs.

For more details, continue reading below.
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CHOOSE FROM THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS:

Published Photograph Monthly Registration–
Register all photographs that have been taken by the same photographer that have been published* in the preceding month for one flat fee. Read below for all of the services included with this package, such as documentation and indexing of photos for later retrieval, as well as remote storage of all digital photographs.
– Order Here

Unpublished Photograph Monthly Registration–
Register all unpublished photographs taken by a single photographer, in digital form, in the preceding month for one low fee. Read below for all of the services included with this package, such as documentation and indexing of photos for later retrieval, as well as remote storage of all digital photographs.
– Order Here

Combination of both Published and Unpublished Photograph Registration Services–
This service covers ALL photographs taken by a single photographer, in digital form, both published* and unpublished, in the previous month for one low fee. Read below for all of the services included with this package, such as documentation and indexing of photos for later retrieval, as well as remote storage of all digital photographs.
– Order Here
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Who can take advantage of this service?
The copyright claimant is the one who must register the copyright. So depending on the agreement, either the photographer who took the photos or the person who hired the photographer.

In either case, the same photographer must have created all of the photographs in order to qualify.

For example, if you are a website operator who employs three photographers under a work for hire agreement, you will need 3 separate monthly retainers to cover all of the photographs that each photographer produces, even if you are the ultimate copyright owner of all of them.

Lastly, many of the services included here require you to send us a digital copy of your photographs. If you do not have digital copies, the price is still the same, but some services such as digital storage and filing will not be available.

Services provided in all three packages listed above:
1) All correspondence with the US Copyright Office, including Copyright registration applications completed and mailed.
2) All expenses for postage, disk copying, and digital storage.
3) Copyright registration deposits prepared, copied and stored (only if sent in digital form).
4) Specialized indexing system for all photographs for later retrieval.
5) Record of all photograph names along with deposits included in every filing, to later prove registration of each individual photograph.
6) Telephone and email communications regarding your registrations.

If you are ready to order, contact us. Or scroll down for more information.

Why is all of this necessary?

For a discussion of why copyright registration is necessary, read our Copyright front page.

If you have ever been involved in a copyright dispute then you know the advantage of identifying every photograph in every copyright registration filing. In order to sue for copyright infringement, you must register the copyright first. It is critical to know when you registered the copyright and to be able to prove it later. Failure to keep records could cost you your rights to sue for statutory damages and attorney’s fees.

Example:

You see someone using one of your photographs without your permission. They claim that it is their picture, but you know you can easily disprove that claim by simply producing the copyright registration and deposit. However, if you are registering several hundred copyrighted photos every month, how are you going to find this one particular photographs registration? You vaguely remember that it was taken five years ago, but will you remember which particular month you filed it?

If you make a guess as to which month you filed, the Copyright Office will be happy to pull up all of your registration filings for those months at a fee of $150 per hour plus printing and mailing costs. And even then, they will not provide you with the deposit photo…just a list of the names of the photographs included in that filing. This is only helpful if you listed the individual names in the registration filing. By maintaining a separate file, complete with names and matching photos, along with listing the names in the actual copyright filing, you will be able to track down an individual photograph registration at a later time.

Additionally, here is what you gain by having an experienced attorney at McIlvaine Law Firm, LLC work for you:
1) We assign copyright registration names in an index format in such a way as to find them more easily at a later date. Such a process is very time intensive, and takes several hours per registration, but makes the process more worthwhile in the long run. If you do not do this part right, you may as well not do it at all!
2) We do the job right. You will have confidence in knowing that an attorney is responsible for your copyright registration and communicating with the Copyright Office should any problem arise.
3) Lastly, as an incidental bonus, because we maintain an index of your registrations for later retrieval, you will have off site backup of all of your registered photographs as part of the bargain…a service that many photographers pay for separately as security in case their computer dies.

Finally, if you have unique needs not addressed here, we may be able to customize this service to your specific business model. Simply let us know and we will attempt to accommodate you.

If you are ready to order any of the above monthly copyright registration services, or have additional questions, please contact us.

A note about choosing which level of service you need:
You have the option to register either your published or unpublished photographs, or both at a discounted rate shown below. The Copyright Office distinguishes between published and unpublished photographs, and this is reflected in our pricing structure as each kind must be filed separately.

Your unpublished photographs are just as valuable to you as your published photographs. And failing to register them can leave you more vulnerable to intentional infringement. It is often the unsold photographs that get infringed by that person who told you he or she does not want to purchase your work. And it is your photos you publish to a website that run the risk of being copied by absolutely anyone. As a result, it is always our advice to clients that they register the copyright on ALL of their photographs, not just the published ones.

A note about filing fees
Filing fees must be paid to the US Copyright Office in addition to the fees paid to your attorney.
For published photos (up to 750) the federal filing fee is $35. It will be an additional $35 for each additional filing for every group of 750 or less photographs.
For unpublished photos the same filing fee of $35, but to list the names of the photos included in each deposit requires a separate filing which may carry additional fees.

*The U.S. Copyright Office imposes a limit of 750 published photographs that may be registered in one filing. If your requirements in any given month exceed this number, then your costs will be higher. There is no limit to the number of unpublished photographs that may be registered in any given month. However, if an unpublished photograph is later published, this may be considered a new work and you should reregister it as a published photograph in order to secure your copyright.


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