The issue of who is required to be the plaintiff in a lawsuit for copyright infringement was recently expanded in Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that a legal or beneficial owner of a copyright can transfer the right to an accrued cause of action for copyright infringement while retaining all other rights under copyright, and that such assignee can sue for copyright infringement.

  In plain English, this means a photographer can authorize a stock agency or other agent to sue for copyright infringement without having to give up or transfer the underlying copyright. The photographer need not be a party to the action.

  However, another, older case, from 1982, in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, Eden Toys, Inc. v. Florelee, seems to suggest that the Copyright Act permits only the legal or beneficial owner of a copyright to sue for infringement. The Silvers court disagreed with this earlier decision.  We therefore are faced with a clear expression of the law which may or may not be followed throughout the country. The immediate impact of the Silver decision has been dramatic. Corbis, acting in part in reliance upon this decision has, as many of you already know, commenced copyright infringement litigation in its own name, on behalf of photographers, in a wide-ranging attack on copyright infringement in the celebrity poster industry, including Amazon.com. 

  This is but another example of copyright owners having their rights recognized and expanded, which is always a good thing for photographers and other copyright holders. Hopefully, all of the country will follow this lead and make the law conform.

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Using Google as a Research Tool

Photo researchers, when they need help in locating the right picture for their publishing project, will often search out their in-house or local library for similar books on the same subject, and then contact photographers who have contributed to those books. Another simple method, if it's a travel-related publication, is to request photos from the appropriate Tourism Bureau or Dept. of Economic Development.

If your project features something new to you, you can often get new ideas and angles by using an image search engine. A popular one is Google.com.

LIMITING THE SEARCH

Other features of Google: You can search the entire web, or limit your search to just the site you are visiting. You'll find this valuable when you want to limit your search to only photographers or entities who are sources of a highly specific picture. The Word Find feature will find your search term(s) and highlight them wherever they appear on a page. Even if the webpage you are visiting has 3,000 text entries, you'll find that particular word in seconds.

You can install this toolbar yourself onto your browser. One drawback is that it’s only available for Internet Explorer/Windows users. Google is considering designing the system for other browsers in the future. You can access the Google Toolbar at, <http://toolbar.google.com>. –RE

PhotoSource International has now launched its own Tool Bar for photo researchers. This Tool Bar is available to all systems, and again is designed to save researchers time in locating the photos they need. You can find information on the PhotoSource International Tool Bar at: http://www.photosource.com/bar

For more information on the Google Tool Bar: http://www.internotnews.com/IAR article.php/2248781.

TRAVELERS ABROAD

Each month we send you a list of our photographer-members who are currently traveling abroad.

If you'd like a list of photographers who are travelling within the USA, contact us with your request.

Northern Germany

Yan Xiaodong

September 14 – September 27, 2003 Italy

October 14 – October 29, 2003 France and Greece

Christian Burmester

September 19 – October 3, 2003 Thailand, Bangkok, Westcoast

PEARSON NICHOLSON & ASSOCIATES (3406 Glasgow, Lansing, MI 48911) Contact person Charles Nicholson, President. Former phone and fax: 1 517 393 1100, 1 517 393 1101; current phone and fax: 1 517 663 2000, 1 517 663 2399.

DAVID TIETZ, Freelance Photo Research (8509 Daleview Drive, Austin, TX 78757) Former phone: 1 512 527 0291; current phone: 1 512 302 4737.

FINE EDGE PRODUCTIONS LLC, former address: 13589 Clayton Lane, Anacortes, WA 98221; current address: 14004 Biz Point Lane P.O. Box 972, Anacortes, WA 98221.

SPECTRUM STOCK INC (239 McRae Drive, Toronto, ONT M4G 1T7, CABADA) former phone: 1 416 425 8215; current phone: 1 905 309 8517.

SHEILA NORMAN, Freelance Photo Editor, former address and phone: 2192 Surrywood Dirve, Dublin, OH 43016, 1 614 799 2918.

AMERICAN JUDICATURE SOCIETY, former address, phone and fax: 180 N Michigan Ave Ste 600, Chicago, IL 60601, 1 312 357 8814, 1 312 558 9175; current address, phone and fax: 848 Dodge #468, Evanston, IL 60202, 1 773 973-0145, 1 773 338 9687.

ALP COMMUNICATIONS (1240 Bay St, Toronto, ONT, M5R 2A7, CANADA) former contact: Jane Evans, Designer; current contact: Christine Wong, Designer.

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Most photoresearch freelancers, consultants, free agents, and self-employed professionals are independent contractors. People who sell their services to other businesses on a contract basis, usually for a temporary time or for a specific project, are called "independent contractors." They are in business for themselves, just like any other individually-owned business providing a service. Independent contractors are not employees. When you hire an independent contractor, you do not withhold taxes, pay employment taxes, or file payroll tax returns for that individual. You pay the contractor his or her fee in full. The fee is fully tax deductible as a business expense for you. (If the fee(or total amount over the course of the year) is $600 or more, you do not need to provide the person with a 1099 tax form at the end of the year.) If you are a freelancer working periodically for a company -- you are probably considered an independent contractor and not working for hire.

Want to read more of this article? Go to: http://www.photosource.com/researcher/freelancer.html

Want to read more of this article? Go to: http://www.photosource.com/researcher/federal.html

Playing the SPAM-game.

Is your e-mail program Outlook Express? Then read on.

One way to combat SPAM in your inbox is to not even open e-mails unless you know the sender, otherwise delete them straight away. Outlook Express can make that difficult since the usual mode is to automatically display the contents of each message you view. Depending on your version, you can set your view to be only headers, making it easy to delete suspicious e-mail without ever opening it. The best way to do that is to add a button to your OE toolbar so you can quickly switch between the headers-only mode and the preview mode (generally OE6 with SP1 and later). To set it up, right-click on the toolbar and select Customize. In the left pane, select the Preview toolbar button and click on the Add button, and close the toolbar customize window. Now you can easily toggle between the header-only view and the regular preview mode by just clicking on the new Preview button. Another option is to stop OE from displaying HTML code, which can cause programmed beacons to fire (automatically alerting the message sender that they've just found yet another valid e-mail address even before you open the e-mail), scripts to run, and images to download (which on a dial-up connection can be a real pain in the posterior!). To prevent display of HTML code, click on Tools, Options, and click on the Read tab. There is a setting for "Read all messages in plain text" which will display your incoming e-mail in plain text, with none of the graphics. Of course, you may actually end up seeing very little, as most SPAM e-mail consists almost entirely of graphic images, the better to get through anti-SPAM filters.

Now that the Homeland Security Department has issued an advisory that terrorists might use electronic items such as CD players, digital cameras, laptops and similar devices to carry out their attacks, expect longer lines at airport security checkpoints across the land. Davis Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, predicted inconveniences for travelers. Gee, really!?

Want to read more of this article? Go to: http://www.photosource.com/researcher/online.html

Photography IN THE NEWS

TrendWatch Graphic Arts has released a new report detailing the growth, use,

and acceptance of stock imagery. According to the report, use and acceptance

of stock imagery continues to rise slowly and steadily among all segments of

the graphic arts community.

http://ep.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=29&ARTICLE_ID=187986

A federal court judge who earlier slammed Peggy Gentieu's lawsuit

against Getty Images as meritless, frivolous, and a waste of time has

now ordered the photographer to reimburse her former stock agency

http://www.pdn-pix.com/news/

Committee to take Mission Bay landfill photos to Coastal Commission

The aerial photographs, from the Fairchild Aerial Photography

Collection, were taken between 1951 and 1959 and show dumping at

different intensities at different locations at the landfill.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030923/31/5cul9.html

Camera Phones Prove Popular

Mobile phones with embedded cameras outsold conventional digital cameras

for the first time in the first half of 2003,

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/pcworld/20030922/tc_pcworld/112576