Registration ©ounts is an ongoing initiative produced by ASMP to create awareness of copyright issues, to encourage all photographers to register their work, and to provide the tools and information needed for registration.

Copyright Guide from ASMP & PhotoShelter

The Photographer’s Guide to Copyright is a go-to resource that will help you navigate copyright law and learn the necessary steps to keep your work safe. With articles and in-depth interviews by experts from ASMP, it addresses key areas including major trends in copyright today, how to incorporate copyright registration into a daily workflow, the risks to weigh before joining social networks, demystifying what counts as “fair use”, plus copyright for still images and motion. Download this free Guide today!

Quick Start

ASMP has an instructional podcast that gives you a step by step guide for registering “groups of unpublished images.” This seven-minute instructional podcast is available here.

Photographers whose images were registered by Corbis and whose registrations have recently been held invalid at the District Court level have been in a state of limbo, trying to figure out what to do, pending decisions in the appeals of some of those cases. There is a procedure for filing a supplemental registration (Form CA) to provide the information that did not appear in the original registrations submitted by Corbis and that some District Courts have now said was necessary. Some trade groups have advised photographers to file those registrations as soon as possible. However, after discussions with the Copyright Office, we cannot recommend any particular course of action. Filing a supplemental registration could, under some circumstances, result in confusion in the court as to the effective date of the registration. This might become a serious problem if the earlier registrations are ultimately ruled to be valid by the appellate courts, since it could mean that your registration could be viewed as effective only as of the date of the supplemental registration, and not as of the date of the original registration.

You really need to weigh the pros and cons, and talk to your own lawyer, before deciding how to proceed here. This is not a situation where one approach is good for all photographers.

Next: Copyright Overview