Copyright Shmopyright!

“Copyright shmopyright! “

This is the attitude I hear often from beginning photographers. If this is your attitude, go away. I have no tolerance for ignorance. If you wish to remove that ignorance from your brain, sit down in the front row and listen very carefully.

In plain English – if *I* create it, *I* own it. If  *you* create it, *you* own it.

Listen carefully, because here is the most important part: If you did NOT create it. You do NOT own it.

All items in the artistic world have been created and are owned by SOMEONE.  If you wish to avail yourself of the artistic creation, you MUST receive permission.

A competitor of mine has a song by Queen on her website. Now I’m gonna bet money that she did not receive permission from Queen to use that song. And I’m going to bet money that she didn’t pay the ASCAP/BMI fee to do so.

What? What are those words I am using? Stop talking Greek?

You’re right. Copyright and permissions are sticky and many hoops must be jumped through and laws must be followed. If you don’t understand it, then don’t try to do it.

Do not be under the impression that you bought the CD and can use it for anything you want. You can use it to play on your CD player in your home or in your car. That’s it. You cannot use it to play in your studio and you cannot use it for your background music for your website or slideshows that you make.

Don’t argue with me. I’m right.

You also can’t use photographs that aren’t yours. You cannot fill your website with other photographers’ work and tell people you shoot in that style. You cannot use them as placeholders and then blame it on your web designer when you get caught. You WILL get caught and we WILL make fun of you when you use that excuse.  If you don’t believe me – check out this Facebook Page: Photographers Against Copyright Theft.

In addition to suffering the ridicule of your peers, you will also be on the receiving end of some communication from some very pizzed off photographers who hold the copyright to the photographs you stole. And their irate friends. And their lawyer. It’s a crime, honey, don’t do it!

I’m going to give you some help here.

What you need to do is find a stock music company that will sell you the rights to use a song for an affordable price. One place that I use is Stock20.com and if you go to THIS LINK you can get one song free. I will get one song free for referring you, just so you know. You will then be able to use that song however you want (except to resell it) for the next year. You will receive a pdf file of a license as well as the song files.

If you need some stock photography, I have been using FreeDigitalPhotos.net (I don’t get anything for referring you here). You can get web-sized photos for free, but you MUST give the photographer credit and you MUST have a link to the photographer’s portfolio (see the copyright image above for an example of this).

This is not intended to be an in-depth lesson on copyright, but a quick and dirty intro to the subject. We’ll chat more later about this, but for now – follow my edicts above and we won’t be seeing your face on a “wanted” poster any time soon (at least not for copyright infringement. Other than that – you’re on your own!)