I've heard that you automatically own the copyright to photographs you take. But how can you prove this in court? If someone were to publish my photographs without my permission or claiming that they took the photos, how would I prove that I am the actual photographer?

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Mail copies to yourself in a registered envelope... so that the date is on them. BUT... DO NOT OPEN THE ENVELOPE or you can't prove in court that you had them as of those dates. Make sure you label the envelope well so that you know which ones are in there. Another option... any photos you use professionally, take a bit larger photo and crop it and then use the rest. Then if ever it is disputed... you can prove the original by producing the FULL picture... no one can copy the original when only you have the full one.

First of all, it would be best to put a copyright notice on them before putting them in a public place where people could get ahold of them and publish them. it beats me why you'd even care though, but i don't know the first thing about it. Sorry, i don't know what you need for a copyright. As for proving it, try getting the people in the photos to act as witnesses, or get the original photos or disc of developed photos and bring it to court with you. That's a really tricky question.

You need to come up with a witness or a reciept that showed you are the one that developed them. Otherwise you may need to hire an attorney, if the pictures are very important.

The simple answer to this is the owner of the copyright is the owner of the negative or slide...which would be you. Unless of course you are using a digital camera, wherein there is no negative or "original". Hmnnn, this certainly does raise an interesting question....how do you prove that a digital image belongs to you and originated from you? It also makes me glad that I continue to use slide film...and will for quite some time.

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