Thursday, March 26, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
- Randy Taylor
- New York, NY, United States
- With experience spanning most aspects of the photography industry, Randy Taylor is co-founder and co-creator of services that include C-Registry.us, StockPhotoFinder.com, StockMedia.net, Veripixel, Extreme Niche Marketing, Keyword Compiler and SPFFY.com, a portal searching 4+ billion images. Randy also created the numbering system for the PLUS Media Matrix and assembled its licensing parameters. His career started as a photojournalist, covering worldwide events on staff for Associated Press in Paris and for L'Agence Sygma (Corbis) in Miami. Randy then co-founded International Color Stock, and later became Vice President of the Press Division at Liaison Agency (Getty Images). Randy is a regular speaker at photo industry events, sharing his unique mix of future vision and expertise in process automation, search engine marketing and online image licensing.
Statcounter
Some argue that no registries are needed until the Orphan Works Act (OWA) passes in America. It’s worth noting that the USA is fairly unusual in that copyright registration is a governmental process (handled by the U.S. Copyright Office). Many countries, such as England for example, have had commercial copyright registration services for many years.
ReplyDeleteThe better question, then, is whether creators need the specific services offered by The Copyright Registry?
In two clicks of the mouse, The Copyright Registry can find the creator directly from their image (or music or video) at any web site in the world, regardless of language or country, even if that image has no IPTC/File Info, copyright notice or creator credit line associated with it … provided that the image file has been reclaimed by the photographer in The Copyright Registry. Would that benefit photographers? Is there a need for that? We believe so. There are legitimate picture researchers, international publications and art buyers who “Google for images” right now.
In the opposite direction, is there value to creators today in knowing the web sites that are using duplicates of their photos or other creative works? Or, should one wait for OWA to pass before finding out who is using your images? We believe learning who’s using your images can translate to revenue for the photographer (who, by the way, directly invoices and keeps 100% with this registry).
It’s true that the Orphan Works Act is going to be a game changer. The rules are going to flip 180 degrees when OWA passes. Billions of image, music and video files that have been posted online or duplicated without proper credit will suddenly need to be found and “reclaimed” by their creators for fear they could somehow be considered “orphaned” under a new law. It will be a massive and ongoing task for creators to associate their contact information with all those content files that are already online.
Why wait for the law to pass before taking action? Why not get started now with a mostly free service that offers the added benefits of not only finding creators, but also finding the URLs of Use of one’s creative works?