How to register copyright on your videos & why you should

[LaceyRoyce]

Hey guys, this is a copy of a blog post I made here https://www.cammodelexpress.com/how-to-register-copyright-on-your-videos/


First up, this isn’t legal advice. I’m not a lawyer. Seeking the advice of a copyright lawyer is something you should do if you need anything more than a quick overview of this stuff. Also this is specific to the US Copyright law.

Why should I bother registering copyright?
There are some things everyone gets told when they start camming. How to DMCA your stuff if it gets posted online, how to slap a watermark on things etc. The prevailing wisdom I personally had received the first 7 years of camming was that when you create something it automatically has copyright so there’s no need to register copyright. The first part of this is true. The moment you create something the rights to it immediately belong to you. So why would you put your porn into a govt database?

Registering copyright does a few things. These are the ones I think are relevant to camming:

1. Establishes a public record that you are the owner of the work. This can especially be helpful with DMCA claims.

2. Enables you to sue infringers in federal court.

3. If you register copyright before or up to 3 months after you publish your content you are entitled to seek statutory damages and attorney fees in federal court. These can be SUBSTANTIAL amounts of money. Without registration, you can only get actual damages and loss of profits and these can be quite difficult to prove. As a content maker, it is likely an individual video or photoset being ripped off is not going to lose you enough in profits to be worth suing for damages without copyright.



Isn’t registering copyright for everything I make expensive and time consuming?
Here’s the thing I wish someone told me 7 years ago:

You can register your content in groups, and because you only need to do it within 3 months of publishing the content this means you only need to do ONE group registration every three months. The standard application is $55. Do this quarterly and this means you’re out $220 a year and your ass is covered.

But won’t this mean anyone can look up my real name with the copyright office?
For once, this ONE time the govt actually protects your identity. Amazing right? On the application form for the copyright you can put in your stage name and identify it as a pseudonym. More specific information about how to do this here:

https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl101.pdf

Sold yet? Ok here’s how you do this.

How to register group copyright on your video content:

1. Go to https://www.copyright.gov
2. Click “Register” at the top left on the page.
3. Click “Log into the Eco (Electronic Copyright Office) Registration System”
4. Under the User Login on the left side click the very tiny blue text that says “If you are a new user, click here to register.”
5. Register your legal information. As long as you register a pseudonym on your actual copyright applications your personal information is safe.
6. Once you’re logged in, in the left side menu click the “Standard Application” on the left side and click begin registration at the top
7. Select Motion Video/AV work under the “type of work” drop down menu.
8. Under titles just keep adding everything you’ve created in the last three months.
9. Continue through the process step by step. It’s fairly self explanatory just remember when you get to Author to make sure you click the Pseudonym check box and enter your stage name to protect your information.
10. When you’re done click add to cart, pay and then you can upload your work. It is suggested that you ZIP your files. The max file size is 500MB so if your files are larger than that you’ll need to break them up.

Tip: As I create videos I simply add them to a Copyright folder. I folders labeled with the year and quarter. I create another folder and add videos as they’re created. When I notice the folder has close to 500MB of content I make a zip folder and start a new folder.



A few cautions…

• The tricky part isn’t registering the copyright, it’s finding the person who you need to sue.
• Photographs are able to be registered on a standard application but not ‘collections’ of photographs. For this reason if you register photos through a standard application you’ll need to give each one an individual name and title or you can use a separate copyright registration for a photo collection (which will up your cost).
• This is obviously for US models. If you create works outside of the US while traveling you should still register them with the US copyright office.
• If anyone would like to provide information on how to register copyright for models in other countries please get in touch! I’d love to add this info.
• These instructions only concern works you hold copyright for. I am not sure how to handle recorded streams (which I think camsites technically may own). You should check with a lawyer.

Hope this helps you protect your smut a little better!

-Lacey

 

[Lelo1]

Great info!

Just wondering, have you successfully sued any one for copyright?
Were you able to recoup the cost associated with filing copyright and enforcing copyright?

 

[Miss_Pixie]

ilu

 

[LaceyRoyce]

Great info!

Just wondering, have you successfully sued any one for copyright?
Were you able to recoup the cost associated with filing copyright and enforcing copyright?

No I only very recently learned all this. To me with the volume of content I produce, $220 a year is well worth it for the extra layer of protection.

Most of this info came from notes from a seminar last year I went to at a convention. It was given by a copyright lawyer who works for a lot of femdom clients. He emphasized that once you've got an issue the hard part is figuring out who to sue, and making sure they have $$ to lose.


The impression I was given there as well as by another copyright lawyer I bumped into in an elevator lol was that if you have copyright registered correctly and it's not contested as long as u can show the person did it, you're pretty much guaranteed to get a decent amount of money.

Tricky part is figuring out who to sue. Angry member boasts that hes uploaded ur shit everywhere.... make sure u save all that proof.

 

[curvyredhead]

Thank you.

 

[Derek_Zoolander]

Even though this is good information, my gut reaction is the rewards of suing someone over copyrights is far from certain.

Remember a while back, RIAA and MPAA embarked on a campaign to sue individuals over music and movie piracy. Their legion of lawyers were actually able to win cases in court and intimidate others to settle. However, they realized over time, not only were they not able to discourage further piracy, suing customers was creating a PR nightmare.

For cam models, the worst DMCA offenders who refuse to take down any content are usually located in jurisdictions that have zero respect for US copyright laws. If the deep pocketed cam sites have not thought it worthy to sue them, I'm not sure what a single model can do without wasting a lot of money on legal fees.

 

[LaceyRoyce]

Even though this is good information, my gut reaction is the rewards of suing someone over copyrights is far from certain.

Remember a while back, RIAA and MPAA embarked on a campaign to sue individuals over music and movie piracy. Their legion of lawyers were actually able to win cases in court and intimidate others to settle. However, they realized over time, not only were they not able to discourage further piracy, suing customers was creating a PR nightmare.

For cam models, the worst DMCA offenders who refuse to take down any content are usually located in jurisdictions that have zero respect for US copyright laws. If the deep pocketed cam sites have not thought it worthy to sue them, I'm not sure what a single model can do without wasting a lot of money on legal fees.

This is not intended to stop piracy, and it absolutely wont help you sue sites outside the US of course. I hope I made that clear. I actually asked about that in one if the seminars and was told they had some success in going after the payment processors behind the sites that put recorded streams behind paywalls but not much else. He definitely didnt make that sound line a sure thing.

I would think this kind of thing is more helpful if you have a model or member or ex boyfriend or whatever that revenge posts your shit. I'm not suggesting you run around suing everyone, I certainly have no intention to, just that you be well prepared if you ever need to.

 

[Rose]

This could actually make a few fetish categories worth filming for me again. Thank you!

 

[Mila_]

Thank you for this thorough guide @Miss_Lollipop! this is a lot of useful information and you made a great case. Do you know if foreign models can register copyright in the US too?

 

[LaceyRoyce]

Thank you for this thorough guide @Miss_Lollipop! this is a lot of useful information and you made a great case. Do you know if foreign models can register copyright in the US too?

I do not know.

When I asked some specific questions about my situation (I'm a nz citizen green card holder making content in the us and sometimes in nz) he asked me if I had a registered LLC in the US and when I said yes he said all my content could be filed in the US. That would imply... content filmed outside the US by a non us citizen would need to be like.. under a US registered biz. But I am not sure and it would be worth asking a lawyer. I have no idea what someone outside the US would need to do to sue someone. In the US under us copyright law either ..

If the lawyer I talked to last time is back at domcon this year in Oct I'll make sure to ask

 

[LaceyRoyce]

Thank you for this thorough guide @Miss_Lollipop! this is a lot of useful information and you made a great case. Do you know if foreign models can register copyright in the US too?

Double post sorry!

I found this info on the website. Basically if theres a copyright treaty between the US and the models country it looks like you can. Also "first published" might imply...that if you published on a US based site first ... that would make them covered? But not sure. More questions for my next elevator conversation lol

Can foreigners register their works in the United States?

Any work that is protected by U.S. copyright law can be registered. This includes many works of foreign origin. All works that are unpublished, regardless of the nationality of the author, are protected in the United States. Works that are first published in the United States or in a country with which we have a copyright treaty or that are created by a citizen or domiciliary of a country with which we have a copyright treaty are also protected and may therefore be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office


Circular 38a, International Copyright Relations of the United States, for the status of specific countries, and Circular 38b, Copyright Restoration Under the URAA

 

[Lelo1]

Did they have any info on how viable it is to do a Copyright case while protecting your identity?

 

[LaceyRoyce]

Did they have any info on how viable it is to do a Copyright case while protecting your identity?

sorry no, you'd need to ask a lawyer. I feel like if they let you have copyright registered to a pseudenom i cant spell sorry..... fml. If they let you do that they must have shit in place... but ???? i dont really know.

 

[dark_mermaid]

For cam models, the worst DMCA offenders who refuse to take down any content are usually located in jurisdictions that have zero respect for US copyright laws.

Actually, they're hosted in EU, the Netherlands to be precise.