Welcome to the Hair of the Dog podcast. Today's episode we're going to be talking about copyright clarity with Margaret Bryant. Copyright's definitely one of those things that becomes pretty overwhelming for us photographers and Margaret helps break it down so that you know what you should do. One you should do, how are protect you and what happens if your work gets stolen? Stay tuned.

Welcome to the Hair of the Dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host, pet photographer, travel addict, chocolate martini connesseur, Nicole Begley. Hey,

Nicole here from Hair of the Dog and I am being joined today with Margaret Bryant from Bryant Dog Photography outside of Dallas, Texas. If you guys don't know Margaret well, you definitely should. She, um, has been in the industry for quite some time and is a leader in the field and she is also pretty experienced and knowledgeable in the world of copyright, which is what we are going to chat about today. So welcome, Margaret, how are you? Great. How are you? I'm glad to be here. Oh, good. Good. I'm so glad to have you, um, before we dive into the world of copyright, go ahead and tell us a little bit about you and your business and background and how you got started in this crazy world of dog photography. Uh, well, I, uh, for a very long time had a previous career as a, uh, in broadcasting, as a radio engineer. And during that time I started a photography business part time. I actually, what happened was that my dog got involved in dog sports—fly ball, particularly, and I started photographing for myself. And this was back in the film days and anybody who knows flyball knows that it's very fast and other people wanted me to photograph their dog too. And I learned in fairly short order that there was no money in that. And so I decided to start doing dog studio photography and started doing that after I think, two years in and have been doing that ever since then. So I am one of the few people who started photographing animals in the very beginning. I didn't start with something else and then change. I've been doing it from the very beginning and it will be 22 years. Holy cow. That's amazing. That's definitely well before pep photography was the thing, there was only one other person in my market that I was aware of and they were doing all of the photo shoots at the pet stores. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. That's definitely, you know, I always like to mention too, that everyone looked sometimes at, Oh, there's so many competitors in my market, but that's not always necessarily a bad thing. There's a lot of dogs as well. And I think that helps the potential clients even know that this is the thing. So back then, when you started, you had to educate the marketplace that you even existed, let alone why people should choose to have their dogs photographed. And the funny part was that

Need to get people laughing at you saying you do what? That still happens. I can only imagine then once they saw my work, then they were going, got it. And let's face it. Our clientele for the most part are people who, dogs are their family. So they understand.

Yep, absolutely. That hasn't changed. Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about, I guess, how you got interested in learning more about copyright because I'm not going to lie. I am definitely one of those people. You start to like look into it and then you're like, Holy cow, my head's spinning. There's so much to learn. So how did you dive down this rabbit hole?

I dove down this rabbit hole hole actually a very long time ago because there was a time when I wrote music and I even back then, this is way pre-internet and even back then people would help themselves to whatever they wanted to. And so, since I knew my, my work was going to be performed on stage, I wanted to make sure that I was covered. And back then the copyright process was very, very different. And so I even copyrighted my stuff back then when I started doing photography full time. And even when I was still doing film, I was still doing copyright registrations and I've continued doing it. And it's helped me a lot during some times when I do have problems with infringements. And I think that all dog photographers, especially should be concerned about it, or I should say animal photographers, because if you're talking about, if you're a wedding photographer, just doing family portraits, uh, people aren't worried so much about copyright because who's going to steal from you. They're identifiable people in there. So the only people you're going to have a problem with is your client, probably. And your client's family members. It's not like it's going to be taken for a commercial product or something like that. Uh, on the other hand, when you're talking about animals, they all look alike. Right? Right.

I feel like the, yeah. People feel that there's a lot more leeway since you don't need a model release per se. They're like, Oh, it could be any dog. Yeah.

Well, and I was given, taking the model release part is I was just thinking that, you know, somebody who is a, let's say a pet food manufacturer looking for some photography, Oh, I like this. And they just think that, you know, all dogs look alike and you know, let's just use that. And so you kind of have to be on your toes when you're a pet photographer, because all animals don't look alike and you own the art, you own the image. So

We definitely know our image. The first time you're scrolling through, you're like, wait a minute. I know that image, whether it's yours or someone that you know, and pet photography, animal photography world is very small. And we look out for each other's backs. Yeah. So tell us, I guess, um, what is copyright if we want to start there?

So a copyright, most people don't know was actually in, is actually in the constitution. So the founding fathers recognized even way back then that intellectual property needed to be protected. Now, of course they weren't thinking about cameras then, but, uh, it has come to be just about anything that is, uh, some kind of a creation. It could be a sculpture, it could be a book, um, any number of things that it could be in back then they recognize the need to protect that. And so copyright is basically protection of your intellectual property is what they call it. And it gives you the right to control what happens to that intellectual property. So you alone have the right to copy it and decide where it's going to go. If you decide you want to sell it to sell it. If somebody is going to do a derivative work to do a derivative work, you alone have that right to do that. Now we could get into a whole separate thing about model releases, but for our, for our purposes, with animals that you have, you hold the rights for that particular image to do whatever you want with it. Yeah.

That's great. I had no idea. It went back to founding fathers in the constitution. That's crazy. So when does your work become copyrighted? Is it when you press the shutter button or is it later on?

So it is when you press the shutter button and whoever presses, the shutter button is the one who is actually the copyright holder. So yeah, if you're out on a vacation and you hand your phone to somebody else to take a picture of you, technically they own that picture, not you.

Do you remember that one? It was a couple of years ago, the monkey that took a selfie.

Well, you know, when you don't want to get into that, well, that's a very long conversation about what happened with that. The next podcast episode, right? I was thinking of a different one, which was at the Oscars. Do you remember the Oscars where it was Bradley Cooper and Ellen Degeneres and a whole bunch of people behind her. And this was a, it was a group shot that was done just in the audience at the Oscars. And of course, those of us who were, uh, copyright nerds, we all said, so who owns that picture?

Right.

Um, but anyway, so most people are, uh, know that once you press the shutter, it's copyrighted. And, uh, so that means once it's a completed work, whether that is pressing the shutter button, or if it's a painting, once it's completed or a sculpture, once it's completed or a book, once it's completed, it's copyrighted. However, that's not going to get you too much because you need, if you want full protection, you need to register your work. And there's the little thing that gets everybody is that they don't realize you have to register your work for it, to get the full compliment of protection.

So how do you do that? Or, and does it matter when you do that?

Uh, all of that. Yes. Um, so most people get into, uh, when they think about registration, they think, man, that's a lot of work and I can't be bothered and it's going to cost me money. And my comment to that is if you put it into your workflow, as I have, if you put it into your workflow, it's not really a big deal. And so you really must register your work before it. Well, we'll get to that in a second. Uh, you actually, you must register your work, uh, ideally before it is out in the public. And because you register it either published or unpublished and you can't combine images that are both published and unpublished in the same filing, but basically what it is is you're going to fill out a form. You're going to send them thumbnails, basically of all of the images that you want to register. They have to be created by the same person, created in the same year, and either all published or all unpublished and you pay them some money. And in a few months, they'll send you back a slip of paper that says that they're all registered.

Okay. Okay. And then who, who manages that registration? It's the federal government and the copyright.

How do you mean manages? Well,

I guess who do you register with? The US Copyright Office Okay.

Okay. And they've made it a more difficult recently, but it's really pretty easy. And there are lots of services that are online that will say, Hey, we'll do it for you. Forget that you can do it yourself.

Okay. Yeah. It's probably like anything. The first time you go through, you're like, Oh, what am I doing? But then it gets a lot easier.

And actually the copyright office does review all of the filings, believe it or not. And if they have a question, they'll call you up or send you a note or something to say, Hey, you know, I've got a question on this. I don't understand why you registered it this way.

Okay. Do you pay per image? Do you pay per submission? How does that usually work?

There are several different ways that you can do it. I happen to use the unpublished group of photographs and it's$55 for 750 photographs.

And then what, what constitutes on is that like putting it on your website? Is that

For that yes. Any place that the general public can see it is considered to be published and there is some controversy, uh, and debate over, uh, if you have a password protected part of your website where we'll show your images and your clients, there's a question about whether that's considered to be published or unpublished. If you really want to be, uh, extra safe, you would just register it as published. I happen to think it's unpublished because it's not out there for the general public to see. Here's a weird exception to that rule though. Uh, and that is art galleries. So, so let's say that you wanted to have a show at an art gallery. It's out there for the general public to see, but it's still considered to be unpublished. Don't ask me why. That's just the rule.

They have to throw in something like that every now and again.

But so basically what it comes down to is if it's on your website, if it's on Facebook, if it's on Instagram, it's considered to be published. That's not a problem. Just you need to register it as published. Okay.

Awesome. And then you mentioned before derivative works, what are, what are derivative work?

So derivative works would be, if let's say that somebody wants to paint a, do a painting based off your photograph, they need to have your permission. Okay. Okay. And so, um, it's not unusual for me to, uh, from time to time to get people will contact me who know what the rules are and, uh, contact me, say, I want to do a painting of this, this one in one of your pictures and I will say, um, usually I say fine. Uh, and I will, and I've had some interesting people contacted. I mean, like Wally Shira's daughter contacted me. It was really strange. It's like an astronaut's daughter contacted me. Um, and usually what I do is I just ask, I, I just want to see, you know, cause my old version, a website version of the final product, that's all. And I'll let them do it for free. You could charge for it though, if you want it to cause remember it's a derivative work and you have control over it. Right.

Right. And I guess that probably would depend too, if they're going to paint it and then sell it and like mass, you know, or versus they're just going to paint it for their own enjoyment.

And, and, and that's exactly what I asked. And, and a lot of times it's for a painting competition. So I don't, that's fine. I don't care.

Exactly. That's fantastic. So we have all our work, we're putting it out there eventually. I think it happens to all of us where we're like, wait a minute, that's mine. That should not be used here. So what happens when you find out that your work's being used and appropriately that someone has stolen a one of your images?

So here's the first thing that I recommend that everybody does is calm down.

That's hard. It's easier said than done.

I know that I've been there. I've had my work show up on the side of a building I've been there. Oh geez. And, uh, so yes, calm down. So first you have to decide where was it? Because that has a lot of bearing on what you're going to do. And uh, so it's going to be, how was it used, you know, where, where did you see it? Had you already registered it? Remember I said, you have a lot more rights if it's registered versus if it's not registered. Right. And so, uh, so for example, if it is, let's say that somebody decided to use it on a poster, advertising their doggy daycare or some kind of an ad for their doggy daycare. And so they're using it commercially. Um, if you did not register it, the most that you can ever go to court for would be whatever you would have charged for that usage. Whereas if you had registered it, you can go after whatever it would have been charged. Uh, court costs, attorney's costs, punitive damages. You can go after a whole bunch more than, than if you hadn't registered it. If you haven't registered it, it's pretty much not worth your trouble to go in co two co going to court. I actually advise people unless it's a particularly egregious theft, it's not worth, worth going to court because you have to go to federal court right now until the Cares Act, which is another story we can get to at the end until I'm sorry, the Case Act once, until that gets passed, you have to go to federal court. You're talking big bucks. At that point,

I've heard, I've heard it's about a$30,000 worth of damages before it's even worthwhile.

Yes, it can be, but there is one good hammer that you can have and I've used it. And that is go to a copyright attorney and you tell, and you tell them the situation and that it's registered and they will send this nice letter that will say that. We'll say, you know, we look forward to seeing you in federal court and that usually takes care of a lot.

Yep. Yep. Do you, when you send that like a cease and desist, do you also like invoice them for their usage or probably depends on what,

So let's back up a little bit because there's more that before you send that letter, there's more, that needs to be done. Okay. So, uh, let's talk about how the, what the infringement was. Okay. So if you're talking about your client, just making copies, right. Just talk to your client. Of course. Um, if you're talking about them using it, uh, on online, you know, they screenshotted your, uh, something and whatever, it's really not worth getting an attorney involved. Right. But if somebody is using it for commercial purposes, like let's say, as happened to me, I actually had another photographer here in town, a wedding photographer, take one of my images and put it on her website with her copyright notice on it. So the first thing that I did and I would recommend to everybody is find out as much as you can about who did the infringement. So in this particular case, I did research to find out who was hosting her website. I did screenshots of everything. So I had everything on record to, uh, to go after, or if I had to. Don't immediately fly off the handle and send them an email or send them a letter, make sure you've got all your ducks in a row first. And so make sure that you know, all about them, where their address is, what the usage has been. Maybe even how long they've been using it. If there's a way of you figuring that out and find out all about, and then decide what you're going to do, what you do with that particular point is up to you. I would always suggest that you write them a letter, a cease and desist letter. And I kind of make the assumption at first that it might be a, it depends upon the circumstances that it might be. And, and, an honest, I didn't know, and it is an infringement. And, uh, so I will, you know, and I'll just say, take it down. And, you know, so there's, you know, no harm, no foul here. Um, but if it's used commercially, that's a little bit of a different story because they should know better,

Right. Especially for your brand,

Especially a bigger brand. So at that particular point, uh, you may want to talk to them about the fact that they, you know, there's a problem. Don't give them an invoice yet, because let's say that it is a bigger brand and you later decide that you need to have a copyright attorney go after them. You don't want to be limited by what your invoice is. So don't talk about money right away, because there is going to become a point on all of these where you're going to have to say, they're not still not doing anything. Let's, uh, I want to go, I'm not going to drop it, or I'm going to go further. Right. And, uh, so you have to decide, you know, at some particular point, and you know, if it's on the web, there is such thing as a DMCA take down notice, and that's the digital millennium copyright act, take down notice. And, uh, what that is is you would copy there. You will find out who their web host is and tell them, there actually is a form to fill out. You want to issue a DMCA, take down notice. And no host, web hosting wants to be caught with a copyright infringement case. And so generally that works and, and sometimes they will take down their entire website until it gets resolved.

Right. Right. No, that's a good, good to have in your back pocket.

A lot of the thefts a lot of times are online.

Yeah. And then how does that work for if it's international, because you know, online world is very worldwide.

You're pretty much out of luck. Yeah. So here's, here's the situation there is that while the United States and other countries are signatories to the Bern Copyright Convention, other countries like China are not right. And so you're pretty much out of luck if it's in another country and that particular case, I probably, if it's a, if it's an egregious theft, right? Not some little thing, I would probably go to a copyright attorney and say, you know, what should I do? And this is very important. Do not go to your regular business attorney. You need to go to somebody who specializes in intellectual property, because there are nuances there that a regular business attorney would not know.

Absolutely awesome. Well, let's do it. Let's turn a little bit from copyright to trademark, kind of what's the difference there. And does that affect us as photographers?

Yes, it does. So copyright is the intellectual property in a tangible form. It is, for example, you cannot copyright an idea and some people think that you can. So, you know, when people started doing the dog catch catching the food, right. You know, you can't copyright that, that idea. Um, the individual pictures, the photographs would be copyrighted and any terminology, uh, branding terms and that kind of stuff would be, could be copyrighted or trademarked. But, uh, the actual concept, the, uh, cannot be copyrighted. Trademarks are marks that are used by companies for branding. And what that means for us is, and this came up with, I think last year, when people wanted to do all these photo sessions with a Grinch costume. Right? Well, the Grinch is owned by the, uh, the folks who, uh, Disney is a Disney. Did they die now? Is it Disney? Now?

He might've bought them. I don't know. I'm not sure it's somebody like that though.

So, um, I used to work for Disney. I can tell you, they go after people.

They take their intellectual property very seriously. Or licensing. Yeah.

Yes, very seriously. And so a lot of people feel like, well, nobody's going to know,

Right. I'm just a little old me and this little old town, right.

Eventually they're probably going to know number one, number two, I hope that your ethical values are better than that, that you know, that it's wrong. And so ethically, you know, you shouldn't be doing that. So now you have to explain it to your client. I had somebody a photographer within the last week, ask me a trademark question because their client had built a, um, an oversized Barbie, uh, display box, you know, like would be there, like the Barbie doll would be displayed in and large enough to fit their little baby. And they said, uh, you know, I had a problem with it and wanted to know if that would be trademark infringement. I said, yes, it would be. And he said that what he was going to suggest to the owner was, no, I can't take a photograph of that for you. But if you want it to you to put a, make a Barbie frame, to put my photograph in, you could definitely do that because then, you know, that's his thing. And it's a private thing. It's not, not commercial in any way. Right. But you have to be really careful about the trademark infringement kind of thing, because, you know, when you go into the grocery store and they make cakes and they have a, you know, you can get a star Wars theme on it, or you can get, uh, you know, any Disney seam on there, they paid for that right to do that. And that's how they can do that. You can't do that. So when I see all of these people that are doing Star Wars theme, and I don't mean just, you know, we're going to have a pretend light saber here. I don't mean that. I mean, as in they're copying the costumes and everything, they're risking trademark infringement and somebody coming after them.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that what you mentioned before too, even if you're, you know, a small business and you're like, Oh, they'll never find me the karma you're putting out there by not by purposely breaking the rules and not following the laws on, on how these are protected of other companies. You know, just how would you want somebody treating your work and your stuff that's copyrighted and protected. So I think what goes around, comes around the sexist a bit there. And also I wanted to touch base too on when you mentioned the trademark, you can't trademark, you know, a specific type of photograph like catching treats. Of course. Yeah. That's not protected, but I think that becomes an ethical thing to have. Where is the line of, Oh, I'm just copying this photographer that I admire versus maybe learning some different techniques and then mixing them with some other things and creating your own unique view on that image instead of just, you know, Oh, I love this. I'm going to make this exact same thing. So I think that just becomes a, something that we should all strive to do is to create work. That's our own, even for inspired by,

I, I feel very strongly about the, the fact that it is very important to find your own voice. And it is very important to set yourself apart from everyone else. And that you have figured out what story that you want to tell for your clients. And that that's what you are putting out there in the world is your particular voice and your interpretation, because they could probably go to any other photographers saying, Hey, I want to copy this. I like these with the hot, hot colors and the wide angle lens, and we know who we're talking about and you know, everybody can do that. Yeah. I can do that too, but that's not what you came to me for. You came to me for what it is that I do. Right. I have my unique voice and mine doesn't look like anybody else's.

Exactly. Yeah. And you know, when we're starting, I think some of the challenges when people are new and they're learning, they're like, Oh, well this is what works. And this is what I like, and they don't, they haven't practiced enough just learning different things to be able to mix and match and start to change things and make it their own. So they think that's the only way to go. But really it's about just learning different techniques and trying different things. And if you want to try something to learn how somebody did something, try it, but you don't share it. And then, you know, just, just always working on, why do I like this image? But I also like this image, how can I combine all of these things that I like from all of these different, you know, different places that I'm inspired to create something completely new. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay. I'm off my soapbox now. Um, alright. So let's talk about websites and using other people's images or stock pictures on websites. How does that work? So you need permission. I can't tell you the number of places that I have seen that you've got a Shutterstock's watermark across an image. It's like, sorry, you can't do that because you know, that's stealing too. Right. Here's the thing that gets me is that the, uh, some of the people that are the most upset, uh, about their clients, uh, copying their work, uh, are also the same people think there's no problem if I use somebody else's photograph, if I copy software, if I copy, you know, all of these other things, they think nothing of it. And they don't understand it's the same thing, right. It really is the same thing. And so there are, I have some friends that, uh, I, I try not to come down on them. I don't, I want them to still be my friend, but they know never to talk about copying things in front of me because they know that I will come back at them and say, look, you don't have the right to do that. I mean, if you bought some software for somebody or some actions from somebody or backgrounds from somebody, they're for used, they're not for you to spread around to all of your family, all of your friends, the one that used to make me crazy would be, let's say that there was a piece of software that was$300 and one photographer would get two others to go in and say, Hey, how about we all pitch in a hundred bucks each? And then we'll just make copies of it for each one of the three of us. And that way it'll save us all money. I'm sorry. That's still stealing. Right. Right. Which I think is one of the reasons so many of these companies are going to a subscription model because yeah, exactly. Can't complain about that anymore because no one played by the rules. Exactly. You know, because there would be people, well, you know, Adobe is a big company. Microsoft is a really big company, or they're not going to know. It's like, well, yeah, with enough people do it. Yes. They will know. Right. Right. And you know, for when you purchase things too, like an action or, you know, templates or something like that from online from somebody almost always, it comes with a read me file in capital letters that will tell you the licensing agreement in there tell you what you can and cannot do with it. And, you know, you can always, if you're unsure, reach out to the creator and say, Hey, is it okay if I do this? Like maybe you purchase something and you a team. So you have, you know, somebody else in your business that needs to utilize something. For instance, I had somebody in my Academy that they have somebody that works with them in their business and like, is it okay if they log in as well to see some of these things? Which yeah. I just so appreciated them reaching out to me and just say, is this okay? And when you reach out and ask, people are usually very lenient and say, yeah, sure. Of course. Um, you know, but yeah, you just use some common sense and ask and read, read, read the terms and conditions with fonts. I imagine too, that's a lot of, of issues of downloading fonts, online,

Knowing exactly where I was going to go next. So one of the things, when you have so-called free fonts that are available, I always read the terms and conditions because a lot of times what it says is for personal use, only not commercial use. Right. I don't even download them because if I'm using them in my business, that's a commercial use.

Yeah. Or they might have them there and they just, you have to pay a license fee to use them commercially. Right.

Yeah. And if I, and if it's something that I like well enough, I will pay that fee so that I can use them commercially, but I'm not just going to say, well, they're there and who's going to know if I use it for on a couple of things in my business. No, you have, I'm hoping that, like I said, your ethics are good enough that you won't do that. Yeah.

Yeah. What comes around, goes around, comes around. Yeah. Awesome. So we've hit fonts, we've hit pictures. What about music and videos and slide shows and websites.

Music is a really tough one because there are so many people involved in the music business, right? So let's start out with saying, I want to play music at my photo sessions and can I play any music at the photo session? And so right now, there are three come to mind. I know that there are more there's ASCAP BMI and see SAC. There are other licensing organizations, but besides those three, but those are probably the more major players. And they came to an agreement that said that. And I don't know what the number is. As long as your studio is under a certain amount of square footage, which probably most of ours would be, yes, you can play whatever music that you want, and it's not a problem, but over a certain square footage, you have to have a license with one of the licensing organizations to be able to play the music. So people will say, well, you know, I want to use music with my slideshows that I sell during my IPS session, you need to have a license for that. I want to have a, I want to include their getting a DVD. Does anybody still do that anymore? Or a video of some sort, and I want to have music with it, you know, can I just put it on there? Well, no. Well, so my client has this piece of music that they really, really like, and they're going to bring me the CD and then I will put it on there. Because when you bought the CD, you were licensed only for personal use. This now becomes a commercial use. So no, you can't do that. Right? And so the easy way out of this is getting royalty free music. Now, what royalty free music means is that you are not playing, paying a royalty for every time you use the piece of music, you are paying one set fee, and then you can use it as many times as you want within the parameters of the license agreement. Right. And I always recommend that to everybody because that's the easiest way. Because if you were to ever read the rules about music, you would go crazy before you ever finished them, because there's such a thing as public performance. And then you get into the writer, gets some, and then the, uh, well, if you're playing a band, that's doing it or a singer that you're doing it, they get money out of it. And the publisher gets, I mean, everybody gets their cut. There's reproduction rights. And there's, it's crazy. I read it and I'm going okay. I'm not sure I even understand this. I'm pretty good with this stuff. So it's just much easier. I would recommend to everybody that you either have somebody in the family or a friend who writes music for you, or you get royalty free.

Yeah. And there's some great places. I know. Triple scoop music, song, freedom. I believe letters your mother,

Here's the problem with, um, song freedom. And you gotta be careful though, because if

Popular music write the song for one, okay.

You need to read the license. And the reason that you need to read the licenses so many times they will say that the license is for six months. Okay. And so is your client going to destroy that after six months? Probably not. So in that particular case, we probably won't want to license something from there because you could do it for your slideshows internally, internally, or, you know, your in-person sales stuff, but not anything that's going to be out some out someplace. Yeah.

Yeah. I know. I use the royalty free for all the stuff in my business and a lot of slideshow creators. Like Animoto now a lot of those different software. So we use to create our slide shows. I've actually partnered with somebody like triple scoop that has royalty free music that you can use in the slideshow. So you don't even have to purchase it on your own. Cause they created an agreement.

They understand, understand that you need to.

Yeah, no, that's good. That's really, really good. Awesome. Well, so we understand a little bit more, but what happens with our clients? Is there a best practice of best of way to, to educate?

Yes. I think that you definitely need to educate your clients on what they can do and what they can't do. Now. I'm one of those photographers that, uh, I will give anybody if they buy a large enough portrait, I'll give them the web web friendly version. And when I say web friendly, the longest side is less than a thousand pixels. And, uh, it was watermarked of course. And so I will, I will give them that if they spent enough money with them or give multiple of them, but I'm not one who sells, all, you know, all of the digitals generally. Right. And so you need to educate them. So in, in my packet that I give them my welcome, I call it my welcome packet that I give them when they booked me in there, it has a section about copyright. If I can always get a feeling, if I'm going to have a problem with them or not, whether I need to go into more detail than just having it written there, that I actually need to go over it with them. So I, uh, but I wouldn't, I would, uh, not hesitate to go over with them. If you think they're going to be a problem saying that, uh, the idea is make it readily available to them, whatever it is you think they're gonna want, make it readily available to them as affordably as you can afford as you can do, because then they're not going to steal from you. And if you educate them, see most of the clients that I have have a pretty good idea. They can't just help themselves to everything. So that's not a, that's not usually a problem. Now there are exceptions. So I did have one that was very interesting. I photographed this guy's dog. What was the dog's name? I'll think of it in a second. Um, and, uh, it was an unusual name and he had a great big, you know, necklace with a dog's name on it. It was a little tiny dog. And, uh, he wanted to, he, there was a particular photograph that he liked and he wanted to know if I would send him a, a high-res file of it because he wanted to be able to use it on his, um, CD, uh, no, a book that he was writing about, about the dog. And first I'm thinking, I said, Oh, do you have a publisher for it? Oh yeah, yeah. And I'm thinking you have to be self-published because I can't imagine anybody wanting to, but I had educated them about the fact that, that it wasn't, that I wasn't going to just send him a file. If you'd like to purchase it, I'd be more than happy to do that, but I wasn't going to just send him a file. And of course, he hit me with a saying, you always hear, but I already own it. And of course he doesn't. And so, uh, I'm thinking on the fly and I came up with an analogy that I thought that he would understand. Cause as I recall that he was a musician. And so I said, so you bought a portrait from me and that's good for display in your home. It's not good for putting on the cover of your book because you didn't pay for that usage. I said, that's like me, let's say you've recorded a CD of your music. And I bought the CD from you. And I take it home and I make a whole bunch of copies of it. And I go to a flea market and I'm giving them away. I'm not making any money on it because I'm giving them away. Would you be unhappy about that? And he said, yes. And I said, now you understand, because you sold that CD to me, for my musical listening enjoyment, not for me to go out and make copies to other people. And he then understood at that particular point and I didn't charge him a lot of money and he happily paid it and I sent it to him. But it's times it's educating it in terms that they can understand.

Absolutely. Yeah. They don't, they don't know the nuances of all of this.

Here's the other part. If you say something like, well, I have to make a living to, who's going to feed my kids. They don't care. Don't even get into that. They don't care. Yeah.

Yeah. Because from their perception, they did pay you to make that image. So they feel like they might be entitled to it. Right. Exactly. I get a lot with clients. Thankfully. I mention it. Well, I educate them. I have digital files available to purchase only those, but they're priced in such a way that it's a stupid decision to do so. So no one ever purchases them on their own. They always purchase it with artwork and albums and whatnot. But I do have, in my session agreement, I have a section on copyright there that they have to initial that section. Um, and then I also have, when I deliver my products, I have a little booklet that I printed that goes over how they make copies. If they want to make additional prints, what to look for, I actually have delivered the files digitally in a gallery that's connected to professional labs so that they want prints they can print from there. So I know they'll look good. But in there in that copyright section, I tell them about contests, because so many clients are like, Oh, I have this great picture of my dog. I'll enter it in this and this contest.

I actually, I actually have in mine that it actually says that you can't use it for, for our contest without permission. The other thing that I include in there too, that, uh, I don't know if you thought about is that I restrict them from using, from them to sell it or give it to a third party. And the reason for that is because there was one day when on a website I saw it was a small company that was selling dog stuff. And at the top was my photograph. And I went to see, well, how did they get that? And you know how that all happened? And it seemed that the, uh, the person who bought the original photograph was friends with this other person. And they said, Hey, why don't you use this picture of my dog? No, no. So I always make sure that it's not only what they can use it for, but they can not convey usage to anybody else.

Yeah. That's a good thing to add. I will do that this week. All right. Before we finish up, though, let's jump back to the Case Act, cause I know it's federal court right now, but hopefully down the pike, things will be changing.

Maybe, maybe not. So fingers crossed well, so the idea of the Case Act is they want to make it more affordable for people to be able to enforce their copyright. And so that you could don't have to take it to federal court all of the time. And so the various different organizations, uh, photography organizations have been working on this with Congress to be able to come up with something. And they came up with something and it passed the house and it's missing passing the Senate by one vote. And, uh, and this would, um, take care of a lot of things as far as, you know, making copyright more enforceable on a much smaller scale. And it's one vote to totally holding it up. And at one point PPA and some of the other organizations were trying to get people to write letters to this one particular Senator whose name escapes me right now, but who is not, not willing to sign, sign it. And if it is not signed by the end of this legislative session, it's dead and they have to start over again. Oh, how frustrating. Yeah. And they've been working on this for a very long time. The other thing, the other thing that I wanted to bring up too, was probably a lot of people heard about the whole thing about the court case regarding Instagram. All of a sudden people were worried about, Oh, I don't want to put my stuff on Instagram. Well, first off you should be protecting your work everywhere now, by putting a watermark on everything, it doesn't hurt to have everything have your information in the metadata. But I will tell you that a lot of these organizations strip off the metadata so that it is limited on how much good that does you. But a watermark is always good and put it in a place it's not obnoxious, but, uh,

Critical. Yeah.

It's obvious. And so the whole thing about that was that somebody got sued because they had embedded an Instagram photo and the court decided that they were allowed to embed the photo. And of course, everybody thought it was no that's wrong. They've gone back and taken a second look. Instagram has also changed their terms of service on there, so that it's very clear that the work belongs to the people who posted it. And that the whole embedding thing is now going back to court. And we're hoping for a more satisfactory response from the judge, maybe a judge who knows something about intellectual property, um, that outcome might be better. So stay tuned because the, uh, the whole Instagram embed case is not over.

Hmm. Okay. All right. Well, good to know. Thank you. This has been so, so helpful and knowledgeable. Is there anything else you want to add about anything

Copyright. Fair use. Yes. I do want to talk about fair, fair use. A lot of people will say when they start taking your work and they'll say, Oh, it's fair use. Uh, people will say, I want to use it for educational purposes. And that's fair use. Well, if using things for educational purposes was fair use, there would not be a single textbook company in business today.

Right. Right, right.

So here's the thing about fair use though fair use has, is decided by the courts, not by the infringer and not by you. Right. The courts decided. And unfortunately the courts have been very erratic, especially in recent years. And so there are conflicting things, case decisions that you sit there and you go, well, was it fair use? Or was it not? And you knowing, you know, you may need an attorney to be able to do that, but so it's a case by case basis. Okay. But people are allowed to use your work for criticism, comment, news, reporting, that kind of thing. And so you have to talk about how was it used. I mean, was it commercial or educational? Was it published or unpublished? Um, was it, uh, the, your work, was it published or published? A lot of times people will think that if I change part of it by change part of it, then it's okay to use it. And that's not true either. That could be like a derivative. Right. Well, I wasn't thinking that as much as, so let's say that you have a, you want to do an art piece where you've got this big white space and you've got a little, a dog down and the bottom right hand corner and people say, well, I've got to chop off some of this white space. And so it's not the same thing. Cause I only using part of it. Well, the important part of it is still there. Gotcha. So, uh, you know, that's the heart of the work. It was that little dog in the, in the corner there. And so no that's not fair use. And then they also want to know what's the effect of the, uh, on the marketplace. I mean, are you going to lose money because somebody else used it. Right. And there are some artists and I'm thinking about people like Jeff Koons and uh, Richard Prince who copied people's work all the time and make changes to it and sell them in art galleries for lots of money and they get sued. And what people don't hear about is that they hear about some cases where they might've won some, but ultimately they pretty much lose all of the court cases and they consider paying off the infringement claims to be the cost of doing business. Wow. And a lot of times people don't know that because they kept trying to say fair use and no, it's not fair to you,

Man. Again, that karma thing.

Yeah, exactly.

Wow. Well, yeah, you've given us so much to think about and to do for the takeaways. I definitely see a couple of them. Number one, always read those terms and conditions and your terms of service and um, you know, just because you have, it doesn't mean that it can be shared. And number two, it is 100% worth the effort to learn how to start copyright your work and registering, registering your work. Where is there a good resource to, to learn how to submit for registration anywhere? Did they walk you through it on the website?

They actually do walk us through it on the website. I have to be honest. I've never read it right for a while. So you have been doing it for awhile and every time they may, I think I've looked at at times when they've made changes. Cause they, it used to be, you just had upload fill out the form and upload your images and your images are called"the deposit" to make it more confusing. The deposit. Um, nowadays now what they have you do is you have to give them an itemized list of the images that are in the deposit. And so if anybody is really interested and in it, I would be happy to do a video or something on it or something for you or whatever. Then we do that because, because it's really easier than it sounds. And there are some rules you have to follow, but it's really easier than it than it sounds.

That's one reason a lot of people don't do it as they're just so overwhelmed with the thought of it that they don't even know where to start. So

Well, the other thing, the other thing, the other thing that I hear too, is that people will say that why should I bother to do it? Because I won't collect anything anyway. Right. Well, and that's the reason for the whole Case Act thing, because yes, there's a certain amount of truth behind that. But I have been, I've heard many times and I, and I've been told this that, uh, a lot of times, if you were to write the letter, for example, to say cease and desist, they won't listen to you. Right. But if you have an attorney write that letter, they'll listen to you then. And of course the attorney is not going to help you out, unless you probably, unless you've registered your work. Because when I went to an attorney, when I had the problem with the image on the side of the building, I went to an attorney and the very first question to ask him, did you register it? And I said, yes. And I proved it to him. He goes, okay, let's go. Yep. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, that would be great. If you could record something, we'll make it a blog post and we'll link it up, um, for this, to this podcast so that people can, can see how easy it is and can get started doing that. It'll help the whole industry. Thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah. Well, where can people find you? Where can people follow along with you and see your work? And I'm in the middle, I'm in the middle of, uh, redoing my website because right now my website looks antiquated. Those things happen quickly. I mean, you blink and you're like, man, I need to update my website. I've needed to update it for a long time, but now I'm really going to do it this time. But my website is Bryant, dog photography.com. I also do workshops and I'm on Instagram. I wish I could say that. I came up with a real clever name for Instagram, but I hadn't really planned on what it turned into. And so it's just Margaret underscore Bryant 2014 and now it's like, it's too late to change now everything's gone. So, uh, that's all it is, but I would love to have people to come follow me on Instagram too. Fantastic. And then where for your workshops where, um, what URL can they find that, is that on your radar? A dog photo bootcamp. Okay, perfect. And you teach that with Kim hearts, right? And we're in Tahoe next year. If we can do it next year, we had to cancel this year, but I know next year I know third, time's a charm. I'm on my third set of dates for Barlander. So let's hope for next may gosh, with every passing week, I'm still feeling like, Oh no. Oh, that's crazy. I could have been. I know, I know I'm supposed to be in Italy right now on vacation, but Oh, well it is what it is. It is what it is. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you again so much for joining us and sharing all this incredible knowledge and we'll talk to you soon. Very good. Thank you.

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