Fall is generally my busiest time of year—lots of clients needing to close out projects before year’s end—and so this year, I thought:  “Why not make it even busier?”  So, I moved out of the super-awesome downtown Portland studio I’ve shared with my lovely wife and talented photographer Beth Fitzgerald (of the Maine Wedding Company and Blush Imagery) for the past four years and….moved into a new, super-awesome downtown Portland studio.

Why?

Beth and I are known for doing crazy things when we probably shouldn’t—like ripping out our kitchen in the middle of winter just because we were bored that weekend.   This time around, though, we planned a bit better.   This fall marked the start of kindergarten for our daughter Maggie, and in anticipation, Beth transitioned to working out of our home office while I hit the bricks in a search for a new studio space just for me.

It wasn’t easy, and my broker definitely did not get paid enough.   The pressure was on to get something on par with our last studio, which Beth found and decorated for us.   Nailed it.  As cool as our old studio was, my new Pearl Street studio has many advantages.   It’s not just the high, 14-foot-high ceilings, the 8-foot-high windows or the exposed brick wall.  Nah.  What really sold me was something not even in my studio, but down the hall:  the elevator.  As a photographer who does a lot of work on location, that’s a feature that just makes my life…better.    To top it off, I have parking right outside my door and the location (although I’ll miss the Portland Pie Company, I ate WAY too much of their pizza) is closer to many of my clients.   Not to mention, coffee.  And the police station, just in case.

I’m all moved in now, and have had a number of shoots here already.  I’m still figuring out the angles, but it’s fun doing so.   I’ll host an open house after the first of the new year.   Until then, enjoy the photos and if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by the Fitzgerald Photo Studio!   If I’m not here, at least you can enjoy the elevator.

Last year I wrote about the importance of copyright registration.  Recently this practice helped me both protect against—and collect for—unauthorized use.

Last spring, I photographed local celebrity and Extreme Couponer Chrystie Corns.   For those who don’t know, Chrystie is the sister of Ashley Hebert, this  past season’s star of the Bachelorette reality tv show.   As her outspoken sister, Chrystie was featured prominently on the season finale.    I’ve photographed Chrystie a couple of times now and she’s been nothing but gracious and kind.

The morning after the show’s airing, I noticed huge spikes in traffic on my blog post on Chrystie.   I started doing some Google searches and came up with several sites—including prominent news sites—using my photo of Chrystie without permission and minus my watermark (clearly visible in my published photo) cropped out.   This is a clear violation of my copyright, the terms on my site and was done without my or Chrystie’s knowledge or consent.

So, what’s a photographer to do?  It may be enough to contact violators and letting them know that you are the copyright holder.  It has a lot more weight behind it if you’ve actually registered your images with the US Copyright Office and gotten proof (the registration certificate) back in the mail.  Coincidentally, I got this certificate just three days before the final Bachelorette aired (though I had registered the images months before, it took a while for the request to process).

Photographers can collect only actual damages (hard to assess, but certainly not amounting to much in the age of digital) for a proven copyright infringement.  If the image is officially registered, statutory damages up to $150,000 may be awarded.   That’s the kind of consequence that gets people to stand up and pay attention.

Another helpful—make that necessary thing—is a well-crafted cease-and-desist letter, written by an attorney.  I have one that I use in such cases as the first salvo.   The second, if necessary, comes directly from my lawyer.

In this case, it took me more than two weeks to chase down and get responses back from all the infringers (there are also legitimate users, approved by Chrystie and allowed based on our license agreement).    In the end, I got immediate take-downs in all cases and an agreement to pay from one site that turned out to be the place many of the others got my photo from.  They are also the ones who cropped my watermark out, incidentally.

Some people may ask why I as a photographer care, or wonder if it’s about making more money for the photographer.   I answer that my primary purpose isn’t to get abusers to pay, it’s to stop the infringement, both to protect my copyright and my client (the subject of my photos).   I will invoice them if they’ve already gotten use out of the image for which they’d normally have to pay but I won’t press the issue usually if they respond quickly and decisively to my notification.

A side note:  I got one polite response from a news site apologizing for their use, and stating that they take copyright violation ‘very seriously’.  They mentioned that they had done a Google images search and that the license indicated it was a royalty free image.   I’ll take them at their word that they are apologetic, but when I searched on Google Images filtering only for “free” images, my image did not come up.

For added protection and tracking of my images, I’m currently in the process of incorporating the Plus registry into my workflow.

So, even if you shoot subject matter that you may not think will require the level of protection needed and afforded by us copyright registration, it’s worthwhile to prepare yourself now before you’re tested.

Know your rights, and register, register, register.   It’ll be the best $35 you ever spent.