re: OT Lawyers - how’s my case against WBRZ for using my image

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Copyright law is weird and you have to copyright your images to really have a case usually.

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You own the copyright to an image, or any other work, as soon as you create it. You absolutely do not have to formally register the copyright before the infringement to have a legal claim. You do have to register the work before actually filing a lawsuit, but it doesn’t have to pre-date the infringement.

The reason to register works with the US Copyright Office before infringement occurs is to provide a (mostly) airtight paper trail in the event that an argument occurs in the future over who created the work. This is important with stuff like written works/stories or music, where the original creator may be in dispute because multiple people may have had input (or it may have been stolen/copied).

Photography and other visual art is a lot more straightforward. The saying “a picture’s worth a thousand words” exists for a reason.

Lots of other misinformation in this thread as well. Most images posted to a forum like TD likely fall under fair use (public commentary). Even when they don’t fall under fair use, it’s highly unlikely that anyone is posting copyrighted images to TD for commercial purposes.

A news site is 100% using the image for commercial purposes. If they are continuing to use the image without permission that’s a clear infringement. It may not be worth pursuing, but it’s still infringement.

If the Chimes is using the image on their website without permission, that’s even worse (and is likely the source for WBRZ in the first place). Yes, the Chimes has to respect someone else’s copyright for a photograph of their building. I don’t know why people seem to think that’s silly - most comparable restaurants would hire a professional photographer for their website images.

Lastly, no - posting images to Facebook, TD, Imgur, or anywhere else does not make them free to use for commercial purposes. Facebook’s TOS specifically give Facebook the right to use your images for the purposes of providing and improving their services, unless or until you delete the post/content. Those terms of service do not give others the right to use any of your content that they find on Facebook.

OP - it’s probably not worth taking real legal action, but if I were certain that the Chimes and WBRZ were both using my photo without my permission, I’d probably ask them both to remove it out of principle.

ETA: Edited with clarity around the timing of copyright registration.

Just curious, is there a public domain for random pictures? Don’t be concerned if this pic seems familiar…

Can I use it on my website?

Go back and put a tiny watermark on your original picture in the left corner. Tell them they can have the watermark Pic for free. Don't tell them that you took the maple leaf off the Canadian flag and replaced it with dickbutt. They will laugh at you while cropping your watermark out of the dickbutt picture.

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Did chimes give you permission to photograph their investment?

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Exactly. Even the design of the building is someone’s (presumably the owner of the building) intellectual property.

Thanks Clarence Darrow. Take his case baw

It’s not a special photo. They can replicate it by sending a photographer

Wbrz should give you credits under the pic
You should probably let this go

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If they or anyone took the picture from public property then it's fine to use.

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That's why Ansel Adams died in poverty. A legal genius from the OT pointed out that he took all his pics from public land so had no copyright protection.

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I know. It’s been on there for several years

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Which I’m sure you either gave Chimes permission to use it or didn’t care that they did put it on their website.

Once Chimes had it in their “possession” the were able to distribute the photo as they saw fit.

So, basically you don't have any rights to the photo.

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Exactly. Even the design of the building is someone’s (presumably the owner of the building) intellectual property.

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It doesn’t work that way.

Copyrights on architectural works specifically exclude “the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place.”

In other words, holding the copyright for an architectural work only prevents others from copying your architecture.

Similarly, holding the copyright for a photograph only prevents others from copying/distributing that photograph. It doesn’t prevent the Chimes or WBRZ from having their own photographer take a similar photo. (There may be cases for certain staged photography where setting up and photographing the same scene might be considered infringement, but I wouldn’t expect that to be the case for a street-level photo of a building.)