Dave Warner over at http://www.lensflare35.com/ interviewed me last week to talk about legal issues and my photography.  We had a great time, including making a new tune for the “D-M-C-A.”  The podcast is available on Dave’s site or via subscription in iTunes.

Photographers’ images usually are infringed by others copying the image, either in whole or in part.  But photographs also may be infringed when others copy the expression of the photograph. Ray Dowd over at the Copyright Litigation Blog recently reported on a prime example of whether a stained glass window infringed a photograph.  The court [...]

As reported in my article, the difficulty with fair use is that “it is sometimes difficult to predict how a court will rule on a fair use case.”  Well, even the courts don’t always agree with each other. Take, for example, the  Gaylord v. The United States case.  The U.S. Court of Federal Claims (a [...]

One of the first things that an infringer will do in an infringement lawsuit is attempt to invalidate your registration so that you won’t be eligible for statutory damages.  Fortunately, Congress recently revised the Copyright Act to make it more difficult to beat a registration. Specifically, in the Prioritizing Resources and  Organization for Intellectual Property Act of [...]

Ray Dowd over at the Copyright Litigation Blog has a great post about a recent copyright infringement case when a painting was copied/created from a photograph.  The problem is that the photographer had not timely registered his copyright so he was eligible only for actual damages.  While sometimes actual damages can result in a significant [...]

The law about property releases is often disputed.  But as previously reported, no court has found that taking and selling photos of property violates any rights of the owner, unless the photographer trespasses on the property.  The case of Benjamin Ham is instructive on this subject. Along those lines, Heise Online reported on a recent [...]

You have lots of options when you find an infringement.  Your choice of action is determined by a variety of factors, including who infringed your photo, the circumstances of the infringement, and what damages you can recover.  My guest post at “A Photo Editor” blog provides more information. Jim Cavanaugh has a great blog entry over [...]

The issue as to whether photographs of copyrighted works is a derivative work/infringement has raised its head again, and Mike Hipple probably thinks that it’s ugly. Specifically, as explained by my November 17, 2009, blog, courts have disagreed as to whether photographs of copyrighted works are derivative works.   And for Hipple, the question is complicated by [...]

As explained in my May 27, 2005 blog entry, you have the limited time of three years to make your claim when someone infringes your copyright.  But sometimes you don’t find out about the infringement until after it has occurred.  So when does the three years start? Some courts follow the “injury rule” for starting the [...]