For amateurs and professionals .. How to protect your photos from being stolen on the Internet?

If you publish your photos on the Internet, the possibility of their theft is very likely, preserving copyright is not easy, but it may be worth it.

Writer Harry Ginas said in his article - published by the American "Public Science" - that his photos were indeed stolen and published on websites.

Guinas stated that you should know that any image you take is theoretically protected by copyright, and this means that there are some measures that you can take, whether to prevent anyone from stealing your work, or imposing this protection in the event of the theft.

The ABCs of Copyright

The author stated that copyright is created automatically when it produces original creative work, and in the United States - at least - copyright is ineffective if you do not register the work with the US Copyright Office, but this process is not simple, as it costs between 35 and 55 dollars per request Recording, but many photographers do not record, especially amateurs.

He called for imagining the hypothesis of an awareness that a person stole one of your photos and republished it on his website without your permission, in which case if your work is registered with the copyright office, you can sue him for legal damages before the Federal Court.

Compensation ranges between $ 750 and $ 30,000 per work, and may amount to $ 150,000 if copyright infringement is intentional, in addition to paying legal costs, and if your work is not registered, you are restricted to being sued for actual damages caused by the violation (such as loss of profits) .

Filing a lawsuit is a thorny matter, as things could get more complicated if the person or company that infringed your copyrights was outside the United States.

Although there are international treaties that protect copyright across borders, trying to enforce them is costly and difficult.

Accordingly, photographers are advised to take proactive steps to protect their work to reduce potential harm instead of relying on the judicial system to enforce copyright.

Register your work

The easiest way to register your work with the United States Copyright Office is through the office's website, and you can register up to 750 unpublished or published photos in one application for $ 35.

All you have to do is download a digital file for each image you copy, which is a process called technically "deposit", in addition to a list that includes the titles of the photos and the time of their publication, and requests are usually processed online within three months, but this may take up to 16 months , According to the copyright office.

"Although most of the images are protected by copyright, the office does not record images that lack sufficient creative expression," the copyright office stressed, "and according to this standard you can take a good picture of a flower, but the likelihood that your image is protected by copyright remains low, there is a process An appeal you can make if the office determines that your photo is not original enough, but the word “separation” remains for it.

According to the recommendations of American lawyer and business advisor Coco Sodic, the best way to obtain protection is to register your photos within three weeks of their publication, including posting to your website or on social media accounts, and you can also record them before publishing them.

Sodic noted that if you do not record your photos during this period, your legal options will be limited.

While SODIC recommends that recording pictures represent a "minimum" of protection measures that a photographer should take, it may not work if you are an amateur and will not use increased protection.

If you are still concerned about the exploitation of your work by some people, consider sending one application at the end of the year that carries your best photos to the copyright office. Otherwise, it may not be worth losing time and money if you are satisfied with posting your photos on Instagram only.