{"id":1559,"date":"2007-07-21T00:01:08","date_gmt":"2007-07-21T07:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/21\/consequences-of-publishing-photographs\/"},"modified":"2007-07-21T00:01:08","modified_gmt":"2007-07-21T07:01:08","slug":"consequences-of-publishing-photographs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/1559","title":{"rendered":"Consequences of Publishing Photographs"},"content":{"rendered":"

My article on Who Owns the Copyrights to Your Photographs?<\/a><\/em> has generated some interesting discussion.<\/p>\n

footnoteMaven<\/a> wrote a thoughtful article on\u00c2\u00a0sharing a family photograph by publishing it on the web, discussing her investigation and analysis of the copyright status of a photograph she\u00c2\u00a0would like\u00c2\u00a0to publish .\u00a0The\u00c2\u00a0Maven doesn’t know who the photographer was, whether the photograph is protected by copyright, or who\u00c2\u00a0might currently own\u00c2\u00a0the copyright.<\/p>\n

After considering the question from many angles, footnoteMaven came to a decision on whether or not to publish the photograph. I’ll have to make similar decisions on whether or not to publish the photographs I own.<\/p>\n

If\u00c2\u00a0a photograph is clearly\u00c2\u00a0in the public domain, the decision is a relatively easy one as long as the privacy rights of living individuals in the photograph and the rights of\u00c2\u00a0those who own a copyright to\u00c2\u00a0anything depicted in the photograph\u00c2\u00a0are respected.<\/p>\n

If a photograph is not in the public domain and the photographers and copyright owners are known,\u00a0it’s\u00c2\u00a0wise\u00c2\u00a0to ask permission to publish the photograph. In the case of photos taken by someone you know, it’s likely that permission will be granted.<\/p>\n

Even after making\u00c2\u00a0a good faith effort to learn whether or not\u00c2\u00a0a photograph is protected by copyright and, if protected, to learn who owns that copyright, many of us will conclude that we are uncertain about the answer to either of these questions.<\/p>\n

So, what are the consequences of unknowingly publishing a copyright-protected photograph without permission?<\/p>\n

If the\u00c2\u00a0copyright violation occurs\u00c2\u00a0on the web, the copyright owner might just ask that the photograph be either properly credited or removed from the website. The owner might even request royalties for the right to use the photograph. Unless the photograph is registered with the United States Copyright Office, the copyright owner\u00c2\u00a0is not\u00c2\u00a0entitled to file suit to enforce the copyright, although the owner could still register the copyright after discovering a case of infringement.<\/p>\n

There’s a lively\u00c2\u00a0series of comments on\u00c2\u00a0using copyrighted material on\u00c2\u00a0the web\u00c2\u00a0following Daniel J. Solove’s article on What If Copyright Law Were Strongly Enforced in the Blogosphere?<\/a><\/em> Both Daniel and the people who left comments\u00c2\u00a0on his blog\u00c2\u00a0thought those most concerned about publishing copyrighted photographs without permission are those in the photography business. Still,\u00a0we probably don’t want to anger our friends and relatives by publishing their photographs without their knowledge.<\/p>\n

A\u00c2\u00a0good guideline to use when publishing someone else’s photographs is to consider how you would feel\u00c2\u00a0if you discovered that someone else had published your work without permission.<\/p>\n

And now, I think I’ll take the advice of Randy Seaver<\/a> and\u00c2\u00a0evaluate the photographs I’ve posted in the past\u00c2\u00a0to determine\u00c2\u00a0if any of them present a possible copyright dilemma!<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2007 Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My article on Who Owns the Copyrights to Your Photographs? has generated some interesting discussion. footnoteMaven wrote a thoughtful article on\u00c2\u00a0sharing a family photograph by publishing it on the web, discussing her investigation and analysis of the copyright status of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-journal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyBfX-p9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}