5 ms·
The first issue here is that she never registered her original work with any copyright registry. It's $55 for 750 photos for the US Copyright Office, which is m
by Broken_Hippo 4y ago
The first issue here is that she never registered her original work with any copyright registry. It's $55 for 750 photos for the US Copyright Office, which is more or less accepted worldwide. (Also, she's living in the US and working there.)
You don't have to register your art (including photos) to get copyright protection. Otherwise, poor people would get the screwed over even more - $55 is around a day's labour at minimum wage. Requiring registering just paves the way for companies to steal poor people's art and photos. Registering is completely optional, though it will sometimes help if you need to sue. There are other ways to prove stuff ownership, though.
- fxtentacle 4y agoYes, poor people are being screwed over. You lose a whole set of available remedies in court if you don't register "timely". It's about as optional as health insurance. You're not forced to do it, but if anything goes wrong, you'll dearly regret your decision. Also, she should have been suing to declare the painting a derived work of her photo. Drawing it was clearly transformative, so it's not a pure copyright infringement. But as a derived work, she would be entitled to receive revenue share from the painter. It's just that for that whole derived work thing to work, her photo needs to be registered first.