If you’re a photographer concerned with copyright, beware of February 20, 2018. That’s the day when new rules go into effect that spell higher copyright registration fees and reduce the number of photos you can register at once.
Currently, you can register an unlimited number of photos online through the Electronic Copyright Office for $55. Under the new law, you would not be able to register more than 750 photos at a time.
This is bad news for those photographers who register thousands of photos to the ECO online at one time. The groups of photos would have to be divided up and the group registration fee would have to be paid each time. So, if you register 7,500 photos at once, your fee would be $550 instead of the current $55.
Here’s the entire new law, called “Group Registration of Photographs”:
After soliciting comments in late 2016, the U.S. Copyright Office adopted a final rule, effective February 20, 2018, governing group registration of photographs. The final rule modifies the procedure for registering groups of published photographs (GRPPH), and establishes a similar procedure for registering groups of unpublished photographs (GRUPH). The final rule adopts a new requirement that applicants seeking copyright registrations for groups of photographs—both published and unpublished—must generally submit applications through the Office’s electronic registration system, and can include up to 750 photographs in each claim. The final rule also modifies the deposit requirement by requiring applicants to submit their contributions in a digital format and to upload those files through the electronic system; clarifies the eligibility requirements; and confirms that a group registration issued under GRPHH or GRUPH covers each photograph in the group, each photograph is registered as a separate work, and the group as a whole is not considered a compilation or a collective work.
John Harrington, author of Best Business Practices for Photographers, provided a useful video last year explaining the step-by-step process of registering published images online.
