FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
The following answers Frequently Asked Questions about The Copyright Registry™ at www.C-Registry.us.
Why is this different from registering with the U.S. Copyright Office?
Where can I learn more about C-Registry?
Why should I "reclaim" creative works that I already own?
Why should I "tag" my images with a Copyright Notice?
What does it cost to join C-Registry.us?
Why should I authenticate myself as a creator?
How do I dispute a copyright claim in the C-Registry database?
What stops someone from claiming my copyright in the C-Registry database?
Is C-Registry.us only for images?
What if more than one person or company holds the copyright?
What is the Privacy Policy of C-Registry.us?
What if I don't want my contact information known?
Will I get spammed by being in C-Registry.us?
Can I find copies of our corporate logo?
Why should I pay for a Report?
Can C-Registry.us be used by infringers to find "orphaned works"?
Why do the Terms and Conditions for C-Registry.us require the right to "use" or "modify" my images?
Why is the grant of authority so broad in the Terms and Conditions for use of C-Registry.us?
Why does the grant of authority use words like "perpetual" and "irrevocable"?
What can I learn at the blog?
Is this legal advice?
Why is this different from registering with the U.S. Copyright Office?
C-Registry is NOT the U.S. Copyright Office. Claiming ownership of your intellectual property in the C-Registry.us database does NOT register it with the U.S. Copyright Office. Registering your copyright with the Copyright Office of the United States is extremely recommended. Do so, by all means. C-Registry.us is a supplemental service that enables you to leverage the power of your copyright by making it universally known, by showing you websites that are using your copyrighted work, and by providing methods to make it easier to defend your copyright and get paid for its use. C-Registry.us is designed to enhance your governmental registration.Click here to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office
Click here for help FAQ at the U.S. Copyright Office
Back To The Top
Where can I learn more about C-Registry?
C-Registry is extremely transparent about information, and answers all relevant questions via a growing list of venues as follows:1. C-REGISTRY COPYRIGHT FORUM (Interactive Q&A format)
2. C-REGISTRY About Us page for a summary of our policies, mission and functionality
3. ASMPproAdvice for students & emerging photographers, hosted by The American Society of Media Photographers (Interactive Q&A format)
4. APAnet, a network of advertising photographers, hosted by Advertising Photographers of America (Interactive Q&A format)
5. Or, contact us by email or offline by phone.
Back To The Top
Why should I "reclaim" creative works that I already own?
First, there is significant value to you, the rightsholders, in enabling the world to find you from copies of your creative works online. Much of your work is uncredited because it was copied without your permission. The main function of C-Registry is to link users to you from copies of your images and other works online, which happens from the moment you reclaim your works in the C-Registry.us database. By reclaiming your creative works, you instantly enable an easy way for users to find you, the copyright owner, from copies of your works almost anywhere on the Internet, regardless of the language or location of that web page. Reclaiming your works has instant and global impact.Secondly, for many years, U.S. Copyright law has essentially said that anything you create is copyrighted by default at the moment of creation. You did not need to have your name on it. The Orphan Works Act (should it be ultimately passed by the U.S. Congress) could modify that. Under some circumstances, The Orphan Works Act could let anyone use your copyrighted work for free if they cannot identify and contact it’s owner ("A Work Of Unknown Origin") and until you find their use and invoice them. This dilemma is multiplied by the Internet where each copyrighted work can be replicated dozens of times without attribution to it"s owner. C-Registry.us enables you to easily and freely announce your copyright claim for your creative works. (This is in addition to instantly revealing to you copies of your work that C-Registry finds elsewhere on the Internet, which enables you to directly invoice for unauthorized uses or order the removal of your creative work from the infringing websites.)
Back To The Top
Why should I "tag" my images with a Copyright Notice?
The patent-pending Veripixel(tm) Copyright Notice process tags your images by placing colored pixels in the upper left corner. This is a unique, new way of telling the world that your image is copyrighted and how to find it"s owner, which is you. Removing these pixels could be considered a violation of U.S. Copyright Law. By adding these discrete colored pixels to your image and re-uploading/replacing the image at your website, you tell the world how to find you in every copy of that tagged image on the Internet that might be taken without your consent. And, you create what arguably could be a new form of legal proof of intentional infringement if this Veripixel notice of your copyright (the colored pixels) is removed by a user.Back To The Top
What does it cost to join C-Registry.us?
It is free to use the powerful core functions of C-Registry.us. If you are a creator/author, it is advisable to upgrade and become authenticated as a creator. There is a US$25 annual charge for us to verify you are who you say you are. Fortunately, this upgrade is also offered for free as a value of membership in the most prestigious trade associations for creators. Ask your trade association if they have chosen to include your authentication in The Copyright Registry as a free membership benefit. A growing list of associations is aligned with our efforts to help you defend your copyright. (Some reporting functions, such as the DMCA Take Down process, incur additional fees).Back To The Top
Why should I authenticate myself as a creator?
When a creator/author is authenticated, it means they have convinced C-Registry.us that they are who they say they are, and that they are a valid member of the creative community, by providing sample publication of their work or being a member of a leading creative trade association. Renewed annually, authentication enables a creator to "lock" their records, which means that when they have reclaimed copyright ownership to a work in the C-Registry.us database, nobody else can change that claim. Until a record is locked by an authenticated creator, anyone can in the C-Registry database change the claim of copyright ownership, the authorship and title of the work, the ecommerce link to conveniently license the content and the official U.S. Copyright Registration number (which links to the Copyright.gov record). Unlocked records can be changed at anytime by anybody. Of course, doing so could be a crime.Back To The Top
How do I dispute a copyright claim in the C-Registry database?
Until a record is locked, you can reclaim copyright to any content at any time. If someone has claimed copyright to your content and locked the file, you can initiate a formal dispute process with C-Registry. In a dispute, you will upload evidence that copyright of this content actually belongs to you. Evidence might include the official U.S. Copyright Registration number, publications of the content with your credit line or the original hi-resolution file of the creative work. You and the rightsholder on file are encouraged to settle the issue amicably. Absent that, C-Registry.us will arbitrate the decision and apply the claim to the appropriate party in the C-Registry.us database or remove the content entirely. An arbitration decision by C-Registry.us can be overturned by a court order or judgment in a court of law with appropriate jurisdiction. It's important to understand that the dispute process only applies to claims inside the C-Registry database. This has nothing to do with your official, governmental U.S. Copyright Registration.Back To The Top
What stops someone from claiming my copyright in the C-Registry database?
Anyone can violate copyright law or other laws by claiming copyright to intellectual property that is not theirs or altering the copyright notice of someone else. (Infringers can even register copyright to work that is not theirs via the U.S. Copyright Office until they are revealed.) C-Registry.us authenticates creators/authors before allowing them to lock their claim in the C-Registry.us database. If, as a result of our dispute process, a claim is overturned, C-Registry.us may, at its own discretion, elect to unlock all records of that person or entity and permanently ban the infringer from future use of our website. An arbitration decision by C-Registry.us can be overturned by a court order or judgment in a court of law having appropriate jurisdiction. By pre-qualifying participants as creators and by having the option for severe repercussions that could result from false claims, C-Registry.us encourages responsible decisions by participants. Again, it's important to understand that all processes described in this FAQ only applies to records inside the C-Registry database. None of this has nothing to do with your official, governmental U.S. Copyright Registration.Back To The Top
Is C-Registry.us only for images?
No. Although the Veripixel Copyright Notice process (tagging) only works for bitmap type images, C-Registry's unique identification process and tracking tools can be applied to any creative work, such as video, music, mashups and more. For launch of the beta service, C-Registry.us is concentrating on associating the identity and contact information of copyright owners with those images they created (of the three trillion images online that are online). C-Registry.us will expand its focus to include audio and time-based media in the future. Ask for a demo if your are interested in media other than images.Back To The Top
What if more than one person or company holds the copyright?
Not a problem. C-Registry.us enables you to apply multiple copyright owners and media types to mashups and multimedia content. Multiple owners can share a copyright. Or, for example, a video might contain music, images, words and other individually copyrighted works that are rolled up in the video. With C-Registry.us can you associate the rightsholder of each aspect with the combined work.Back To The Top
What is the Privacy Policy of C-Registry.us?
Protecting user privacy is mission critical for C-Registry.us. That is balanced by the core function of The Copyright Registry, which is to make it easy for users to find the owners of content. To satisfy both mandates, C-Registry.us has implemented extraordinary processes. For example, it enables every registered user to opt-in for the display of their contact information (email, phone, fax). And, C-Registry.us has a double blind email process that enables anonymous initial contact to a rightsholder. Because C-Registry.us requires registration and login for participants, it also has the capability upon request to block communication from specific individuals at the request of the intended recipient. In these ways and more, C-Registry.us protects the privacy of users while encouraging contact between participants. For more insights, see our Privacy Policy.Back To The Top
What if I don't want my contact information known?
C-Registry.us is super sensitive about protecting your rights. While it is in your best interest to enable contacting you, the copyright holder, in as many ways as possible, we provide you the option of hiding your contact information. When a user"s search for the owner of content leads them to you, these users who are logged in can contact you via a double-blind email process that protects both your identity and theirs. You can determine if you want to then directly reveal your contact information or not.Back To The Top
Will I get spammed by being in C-Registry.us?
No. All users must be registered and logged in. There is no search or display of lists of users. To reach your contact information, a user must first have found your content online and activated our unique process for finding the owner of that content by using C-Tools or entering the URL. You will be contacted only by human beings (not machines) who are looking for the copyright holder of your creative work.Back To The Top
Can I find copies of our corporate logo?
Yes. By checking your corporate web page using the powerful C-tools of The Copyright Registry(tm), you are adding a reference to the image file of your corporate logo to the C-Registry.us database. You can then see a list of websites that our "spider" has found elsewhere on the Internet. C-Registry.us is an ideal tool for finding potentially counterfeit product sites and corporate identity theft, as well as the online location of duplicates of other image files.Back To The Top
Why should I pay for a Report?
One big value of C-Registry.us is it"s ability to create a Report that is verifiable and trackable. When a C-Report is created and emailed to you from C-Registry.us, you can verify the authenticity of that report at any time in the future. By entering the URL to that C-Report at a later date, C-Registry.us will verify that the report entered is, in fact, the exact report that was issued without any modification of any kind. Because of this unique capability of verifying reports that we issue, you could possibly use a C-Report as evidence in legal proceedings. And if necessary, you can engage an expert witness from C-Registry.us who will testify to the validity of that C-Report, which has captured information relating to that copyrighted work at that moment in time. It is important to note that no rights of any kind are granted in reports. Reports merely document data, URLs and usage at a moment in time.Back To The Top
Can C-Registry.us be used by infringers to find "orphaned works"?
No. There is no mechanism that displays a list of creative works with no claimed ownership as a result of a search. Users must enter a webpage URL or use the unique C-tools of C-Registry.us to check the content on a specific webpage. Only from this source file or files can users see copyright ownership claims in the C-Registry.us database or that a work is unclaimed in our database. When a rightsholder claims a single piece of content in C-Registry.us, their ownership claim will then appear when a user checks any identical copy of that creative work anywhere on the Internet in the entire world. Since the starting point for searching for ownership of content is to have access to that content already, the main purpose of The Copyright Registry is to help find the owner of content is none is known at the source web site of that content.Back To The Top
Why do the Terms and Conditions for C-Registry.us require the right to "use" or "modify" my images?
The Copyright Registry allows creators and rightholders to modify the actual image file by enabling the addition of our patent-pending Veripixel(tm) Copyright Notice, which adds the unique ID of that image and it"s owner as colored pixels in the upper left corner of the image. We freely hand each photographer control to "tag" their images. The grant of authority to use and modify your images allows the registry to provide the Veripixel(tm) Copyright Notice process for adding this new notice of ownership to the original image, thus using or modifying the image.Back To The Top
Why is the grant of authority so broad in the Terms and Conditions for use of C-Registry.us?
The terms are not as broad as you think. Read carefully the definitions for the words "access", "information" and "content" in the Terms and Conditions. The scope of rights granted is limited by the definition that we use for these words. Our definition for "information" is limited to data, such as URL's, dates and text. That's like text data in a phone book. "Content" is defined as access to, for example, images via URL's, NOT use or distribution of image files. The registry is a database of URL links to content all over the web where the original content is stored. The Copyright Registry does not store the content files, just the URL to those files. No image files need uploading. In that way, The Copyright Registry functions like a search engine. When someone or our spider adds a URL to an object to the database, we share access to that object via the URL until that website blocks access, which you can do at any time. Whoever controls the website (and hence, the content file) can block access by us or anybody they choose. By defining "Content" as access, we are specifically acknowledging that the rightsholder controls access to their content and can cut off that access at will.Back To The Top
Why does the grant of authority use words like "perpetual" and "irrevocable"?
Everything displayed at any web site, including C-Registry.us, can be spidered by search engines and linked from other web pages. Even though The Copyright Registry is not storing or distributing your images or other creative works, it is still the means by which others can access your creative works at your web site or copies of your creative works at the web sites of others. We have no way of removing those links and access once they occur at other web sites. If links to your web site, information, images and other creative works are published by other web sites, and if they found this data via C-Registry.us, then we need the perpetual and irrevocable right to have made available that information since we cannot recall any data from third parties. It is important to note that you are granting ACCESS to your creative works, NOT USE of your creative works. There is a big difference between being able to see your creative work online at a web site and obtaining a license from you to use it for some other purpose. (Learn more at What rights do photographers grant C-Registry?)Back To The Top
What can I learn at the blog?
Our company blog is more dynanic than the FAQs. Check it for the newest questions and answers. Here are links to some specific subjects in C-Registry's blog:>>>What rights do photographers grant C-Registry?
>>>C-Registry Answers APA
>>>Will images accessed by C-Registry.us be searchable in StockPhotoFinder.com?
>>>Why does C-Registry use the “.us” domain?
>>>How does the technology spider and track infringing images on the web?
>>>Is a registry needed when there is no Orphan Works Act?
>>>Where will the revenue come from?
Back To The Top
Is this legal advice?
No. The statements herein are the opinions of individuals. They are not legal advice. For legal advice, please consult an attorney.Back To The Top
