Register your pictures with the copyright office

[diverdon 1]

The Oct issue of the layers Magazine has as its main theme “how to protect your images online.” I Have not read it all yet but for anyone interested in protecting their intellectual property under current law I think it is well worth the $199 cost for a two year membership to NAPP. With the two year membership you get Layers Magazine along with Photoshop User Magazine.

 

 

One of the many techniques they suggest is registering online with the copyright office http://copyright.gov/eco they say that if your image is not registered with the copyright office you can only sue for your actual damages when people steal your images. But, if the image is registered then you can sue for Damages plus legal fees and punitive damages. They say that by going to the website you pay a $35 fee and then you can register as many images as you can upload in 30 minutes. How many images can I upload in 30 minutes I wondered? I have read on wet pixel before that other member copyrighting images had put many quite small files on disc so that they could be all registered for a single fee. This seemed like a great idea. So I fired up Photoshop and wrote an action to shrink the smaller dimension of an image to 480 pixels, and then save the image to a folder named copyright registration. Then close the image as a JPEG with a quality setting of 0. I assigned the F10 key to initiate the action. This resulted in most files being between 20KB and 50KB. They conclude, what are you waiting for?

 

Next I went to explorer to open the images. I have my images organized into folders and subfolders. When I shoot I usually shot the simultaneous RAW and JPEG so I went to the top and clicked file type to get all the JPEG’s separated from the RAW’s. Then dragged all the JPEG’s in a folder into Photoshop simultaneously (Yeah I paid a bundle to get a lot of RAM and a big Scuzzi scratch drive on my computer) It still takes about 2 seconds per JPEG to open them each so if I have 100 JPEG’s in a folder it might take three min to open them all. It seems to take a little less than a second to complete the action. So I can do a typical folder with 100 JPEG’s in about four minutes total. In about three hours I compressed a Terra byte drive into a 200 Mb folder. I should have about 10 folders like this when I am done. I will report back after I do the upload with a cost per picture to register them this way.

 

 

I am jumping the gun and publishing this part early because I am hoping one of the real Photoshop gurus on the board can help us all by telling ma a way to get the action to play without having to press the function key.

Edited September 11, 2008 by diverdon

[TheRealDrew 0]

I am jumping the gun and publishing this part early because I am hoping one of the real Photoshop gurus on the board can help us all by telling ma a way to get the action to play without having to press the function key.

 

 

If I follow correctly you are pressing F10 each time to run the action but it sounds like you are also batch processing using the action? I think I may be missing what you are doing

[diverdon 1]

If I follow correctly you are pressing F10 each time to run the action but it sounds like you are also batch processing using the action? I think I may be missing what you are doing

 

I lent my photoshop bible out, and actions are not one of my strong suits. Yes I am pressing F10 once for each image, because I do not know how to make the action play itself (or process the whole batch)

[TheRealDrew 0]

I lent my photoshop bible out, and actions are not one of my strong suits. Yes I am pressing F10 once for each image, because I do not know how to make the action play itself (or process the whole batch)

 

 

Ah.

 

File->Automate->Batch (on the Mac Menus probably similar for PC version do not have it running right now)

 

Choose target folder (the originals) and destination (where you want them to wind up)

 

Override open and save options should be checked. Start it up and it should work.

[jeremypayne 0]

they say that if your image is not registered with the copyright office you can only sue for your actual damages when people steal your images. But, if the image is registered then you can sue for Damages plus legal fees and punitive damages.

 

Here are the benefits of registration according to the Copyright office.

 

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr

Copyright Registration

In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration. Among these advantages are the following:

 

*** Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.

 

*** Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.

 

*** If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.

 

*** If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.

 

*** Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies.

 

For additional information, go to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website at www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import. Click on “Intellectual Property Rights.”

 

Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright. Unlike the law before 1978, when a work has been registered in unpublished form, it is not necessary to make another registration when the work becomes published, although the copyright owner may register the published edition, if desired.

 

Here is a link to the remedies in the case of infringement:

 

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504

[diverdon 1]

Ah.

 

File->Automate->Batch (on the Mac Menus probably similar for PC version do not have it running right now)

 

Choose target folder (the originals) and destination (where you want them to wind up)

 

Override open and save options should be checked. Start it up and it should work.

 

RealDrew my tired finger really thanks you...

 

I have about 4 more TB of files to shrink and get ready. I will report on how the upload goes tomorrow.

[Craig Ruaux 0]

I've used the online registration system a couple of times now, and it has worked well (meaning, I got a certificate, there's not much more to it than that).

 

As I'm using Aperture, I just set up an export preset for a "copyright registration jpg", and export them to a folder. Folder is then compressed (zipped) to make one monolithic file. The copyright office will unzip it.

I use my office high bandwidth connection to upload the zipped file.

 

With the looming Orphan Works legislation, this is all becoming increasingly important for us all.

[diverdon 1]

I spent a day getting all my files ready for up load. Then watehed the tutorials on how to do it. It took about 30 Minutes to fill out the paperwork and submit my credit card.

 

As you might imagin as this is run by the government in the end it is completly USELESS and dose not work like it is supposed to work.

 

When I went to do the up load it only takes indivual JPEGS not folders of JPEGS. This very much limets the number of files it would be possible to transmit. As I had prepared 11,507 files I am very disapointed.

[diverdon 1]

I see that PDF is a supported format I am going to attempt to convert each folder to a single PDF using the windows XP utilities and then see if they started my time at the beginning of I I have 30 Min from when I begin the upload.

[TheRealDrew 0]

I see that PDF is a supported format I am going to attempt to convert each folder to a single PDF using the windows XP utilities and then see if they started my time at the beginning of I I have 30 Min from when I begin the upload.

 

 

There is a automation to make PDFs, Webpages and some other things in Photoshop, in the same pulldown area as the batch processing

Edited September 13, 2008 by TheRealDrew

[diverdon 1]

I am not sure the best way to continue here. I need to take folders with approx 1000 images each and some how turn them into a single document. The combine into a PDF function is just crashing explorer. I think photo shop would just turn each individual image from a jpg to a pdf, but I would still have 11,507 to deal with. I can not believe that they do not have some decent FTP program that you can just drop a folder into.

[TheRealDrew 0]

I am not sure the best way to continue here. I need to take folders with approx 1000 images each and some how turn them into a single document. The combine into a PDF function is just crashing explorer. I think photo shop would just turn each individual image from a jpg to a pdf, but I would still have 11,507 to deal with. I can not believe that they do not have some decent FTP program that you can just drop a folder into.

 

 

Contact Sheet could help make the total number of images lower (still many pages but could be easier to process, both manually if needed or perhaps the PDF functions may not be as overloaded (Photoshop is crashing while running that automation?)

[diverdon 1]

Contact Sheet could help make the total number of images lower (still many pages but could be easier to process, both manually if needed or perhaps the PDF functions may not be as overloaded (Photoshop is crashing while running that automation?)

 

The contact sheet was probably a good idea. Using photo shop to make multiple files into pdf's I couls only get photoshop to put a max of 200 JPEG files into a pdf. I had folders with 620 to 2500 JPEG's and I wanted to turn each folder into a single PDF. After a bunch more futzing around I found that I had to use a different check box on the acrobat. For some reason it seems to work now that I am checking (assemble files into a PDF package) rather than (Merge files into a single package.) I like this better because the original file names are part of the final PDF.

 

So now I am finally have my 11,507 JPEGS turned into eight PDF's. This seems a reasonable number for even the stupid upload manager at the copyright office. When done the eight PDF's totaled 435Mb I have a pretty high speed cable my internet connection supports business teleconferencing. But when I clicked the (submit files to copyright office) button I got a transfer rate of 73.1kb/sec with a projection that it would take 90 min to upload my files. The $35 fee only gives you 30 minutes. I clicked the (submit files to copyright office) AT 8:40

 

One other minor annoyance I should mention is that in order to do the up load you must disable your popup blocker.

 

9:10 thirty minutes have passed and has uploaded 141.726Mb then just stops.

 

I guessthe old method of sending in discs is a lot easier.

[Steve Williams 0]

Hey Don, sorry this has been an exercise in futility for you. I can't help thinking maybe there is another way to approach it. Do you really have 11,000 images that you need to protect? If you do then congratulations and more power to you, but another approach might be to cover the fewer number that somebody can get at. Just an idea. Good luck!

Steve

[TheRealDrew 0]

The contact sheet was probably a good idea. Using photo shop to make multiple files into pdf's I couls only get photoshop to put a max of 200 JPEG files into a pdf. I had folders with 620 to 2500 JPEG's and I wanted to turn each folder into a single PDF. After a bunch more futzing around I found that I had to use a different check box on the acrobat. For some reason it seems to work now that I am checking (assemble files into a PDF package) rather than (Merge files into a single package.) I like this better because the original file names are part of the final PDF.

 

So now I am finally have my 11,507 JPEGS turned into eight PDF's. This seems a reasonable number for even the stupid upload manager at the copyright office. When done the eight PDF's totaled 435Mb I have a pretty high speed cable my internet connection supports business teleconferencing. But when I clicked the (submit files to copyright office) button I got a transfer rate of 73.1kb/sec with a projection that it would take 90 min to upload my files. The $35 fee only gives you 30 minutes. I clicked the (submit files to copyright office) AT 8:40

 

One other minor annoyance I should mention is that in order to do the up load you must disable your popup blocker.

 

9:10 thirty minutes have passed and has uploaded 141.726Mb then just stops.

 

I guessthe old method of sending in discs is a lot easier.

 

 

On the PDF settings you can set the quality of the PDF that is output to help reduce the size and there can be some good savings (not sure how many pages you wound up with, but with 11,507 images perhaps it is as small as it can reasonably get.) So perhaps that can help, or .Zip may help depending on the file.

 

Also looks like you can split the files and upload in a couple of sessions Upload Limits and may not have to pay twice.