You read that correctly. Not to sound like a famous insurance commercial, but spending $65 up front could afford you much more in copyright infringement damages. Most photographers do not consider copyright registration until someone has already copied their work. By then, it may be too late for any significant recovery. Filing a copyright registration may feel like one more administrative burden, but it can pay for itself many times over if your work is infringed.

Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is relatively affordable and straightforward. A single work by one author who is also the claimant (and that is not a work made for hire) can be registered electronically for as little as $45. A Standard Application, which covers other single-work filings, is $65. Current registration fees are listed here.

Photographers can register either individual images or groups of images. A group registration covers up to 750 photographs for $55 and is subject to several conditions: all the photos must have the same photographer and owner, not a mix of both. And for a published group, all the photos must have been published in the same calendar year.

Registration is effective on the day the Copyright Office receives a complete application, along with the filing fee and deposit copy. However, registration itself does not establish copyright protection. Under Section 102(a) of the Copyright Act, protection begins at the time a work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. For a photographer, that is generally the moment the image is captured.

Then why register at all? The answer lies in the remedies. Statutory damages and attorneys’ fees are available only if the photo was registered before the infringement began, or, for a published work, within three months of first publication. For U.S. works, a valid registration is also a prerequisite to filing an infringement suit.

Absent a timely registration, a copyright owner can still recover actual damages. But actual damages are often difficult to prove and typically fall well short of statutory damages, which are $750-$30,000 per work, and can reach as much as $150,000 per work for willful infringement. And when a registered work is infringed, the registered owner can seek payment of attorneys’ fees. Since litigating a copyright infringement case can involve substantial legal fees, many infringers choose to settle claims, rather than incur not only their own legal expenses, but also the burden of compensating the copyright owner’s legal costs.

In short, the most valuable step in protecting a photograph may be the one taken before anyone copies it. Lutzker & Lutzker can assist with filings and help develop a broader registration and copyright protection strategy. For further reading from our website on the topics discussed here, see the following insights and IP Bits & Pieces®: Compilations v. Individual Copyright Registrations of Photographs, Copyright and Photography: A Practical Primer and our Copyright FAQs.