The Power of: © !!!

Have you ever noticed the © at the bottom of websites, photos, or images?  A couple of months ago, I remember seeing a collection of nature photos on someone's personal blog.  What interested me more than the photos was the fact that on EVERY single photo, the photographer had imposed the © image along with their name and the year.  

How did they do that?  And, what does that mean?  

Finally! The Business Foundations classes I just finished at UT are paying off.  All it took for the idea of copyright to become less intimidating to me was a 15 minute class discussion on the difference between patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights.

To investigate more, I consulted THE source: The U.S. Copyright Office (well.. their website,  www.copyright.gov, at least).

Here's the scoop:

Turns out, anything you create, write, or produce is already copyrighted.  So, say you take a cool picture and you want to put it up on your blog.  It's copyrighted!  Bam!  You didn't have to do anything at all besides produce the work.  It's like an innate copyright on the image.

So, putting the © 2012 Heather Hill at the bottom of the image has no legal power, but it does serve as a nice, friendly notice/reminder to people that Hey! I did create this image!  This work is mine! (and that I didn't just copy it from somewhere or someone else).

But! Before we get all excited and think all of our work is fully protected, know this:

If someone were to say ... copy your image, print it on a t-shirt, sell it to the masses, make lots of money, become a millionaire, retire and dig their toes in the sand for the rest of their life ... you wouldn't have any leverage against them for using your work UNLESS you have registered your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office (small fee, fairly easy to do, can be done online). 

The way I'm looking at all this is:

• When you write a cool story, take a cool picture, create and sing a song, a copyright on that work is inherently born with it.

• If you want a gentle, friendly reminder to let people know the cool image or story is yours, feel free to add the © symbol, year of production, and your name.

• If you want legal power to file a lawsuit on someone who copies your image, prints it on a t-shirt, sells it to the masses, makes lots of money, etc. ... you need to have actually registered your copyright online with the U.S. Copyright office.  

Here's some backup from the guys in the suits.  These excerpts are taken directly from the Copyright Basics document published by the U.S. Library of Congress (which can be found here).

How to make the Copyright Blurb:

"The use of the copyright notice is the responsibility of the 

copyright owner and does not require advance permission 

from, or registration with, the Copyright Office.

Form of Notice for Visually Perceptible Copies

The notice for visually perceptible copies should contain all 

the following three elements:

1 The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word 

“Copyright,” or the abbreviation “Copr.”; and

2 The year of first publication of the work. In the case of 

compilations or derivative works incorporating previously 

published material, the year date of first publication of 

the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year 

date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculp­

tural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is 

reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, 

jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful article; and

3 The name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an 

abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a 

generally known alternative designation of the owner.

Example: © 2011 John Doe"

When Copyright protection becomes effective:

"When the Copyright Office issues a registration certificate,

it assigns as the effective date of registration the date it 

received all required elements—an application, a nonrefund­

able filing fee, and a nonreturnable deposit—in acceptable 

form, regardless of how long it took to process the applica­

tion and mail the certificate. You do not have to receive your 

certificate before you publish or produce your work, nor 

do you need permission from the Copyright Office to place 

a copyright notice on your work. However, the Copyright 

Office must have acted on your application before you can 

file a suit for copyright infringement, and certain remedies, 

such as statutory damages and attorney’s fees, are available 

only for acts of infringement that occurred after the effective 

date of registration. If a published work was infringed before 

the effective date of registration, those remedies may also be 

available if the effective date of registration is no later than 

three months after the first publication of the work."

***Please note that these comments are my interpretation of the Copyright law and Copyright Basics document published by the U.S. Library of Congress.  I am not a lawyer; please consult one if you need any legal advice***

And thus, introducing the newest member of the family:

So, Bottom line:
While the  'hugs from heather :)'  text seems like it serves the exact same purpose (at least amongst my friends), the '© 2012 Heather L. Hill' makes things a little more formal :)   (...until I officially register the image... stay tuned :)