Matt Patterson, IP Attorney - How to Protect Your Photos from Theft and Misuse Artwork

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The Photographer Mindset

Matt Patterson, IP Attorney - How to Protect Your Photos from Theft and Misuse

August 11, 2025 • Seth Macey & Aaron Mannes • Episode 285

Matt Patterson is an intellectual property attorney and photographer. As an attorney, Matt specializes in patents and trademarks, but he also has an extensive knowledge of copyright law.

In this episode, Matt dives deep into the world of copyright for photographers. He shares actionable advice on incorporating copyright registration into your workflow, the benefits of protecting your work, and how to handle situations where your images are used without permission. From understanding the nuances of licensing agreements to navigating the gray areas of derivative works and AI-generated edits, Matt provides a masterclass in safeguarding your creative assets and what to do if your images are stolen or used beyond their intended usage.

Expect to Learn:

Why registering photos with the U.S. Copyright Office is crucial for protecting your work
How photographers can integrate copyright registration into their workflow
What to do if someone uses your images without permission
How to structure licensing agreements that clearly define how their work can be used
How AI-generated edits affect copyright ownership

Matt's links:

IP Attorney Website: https://www.optimalipstrategies.com/
Photography Website: https://www.wild-shot.com/

Sponsors:

Thanks to Tamron for sponsoring this episode! Tamron just released the new 16-30mm F/2.8 G2 lens for Sony E-Mount and Nikon Z Mirrorless cameras. If you're looking to add a lightweight and sharp focused wide angle lens to your kit, this should be number one on your list! Seth has this exact lens in his kit and has great things to say about it! You can visit www.tamron-americas.com or your local Tamron dealer today to check it out!

Thanks also to the National Park Foundation for sponsoring today’s episode. Enter the Share the Experience photo contest for a chance to win $10,000 and prizes from Celestron, Historic Hotels of America, and YETI. The grand prize winner’s photo could be featured on the America the Beautiful—the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass.

Submit your best shots now at sharetheexperience.org/tpm

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@sethmacey
@mantis_photography
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INTRO:

00:02.08
Seth Macey
Hey, you're listening to another episode of the Photographer Mindset Podcast. I'm your co-host Seth Macey.

00:06.62
Aaron
And I'm your co-host Aaron Mannes.

00:08.16
Seth Macey
Today we had on Matt Patterson who joined us on our most recent Alaska Photographer Mindset Photography Retreat. He was there last year too in Alaska. Great guy.

00:16.39
Aaron
Yeah. Repeat guest.

00:17.48
Seth Macey
Great guy. Pete Gass and him and I had talked so much during the trip about copywriting images, trademark, all that stuff. And I said, hey, you need to come on and tell photographers how they can protect their work, what rights they have when...

00:33.51
Seth Macey
um ah usage gets violated, etc. And so Matt came on today. He's a trademark and patent attorney by day. He's also a very good nature and wildlife photographer. So we get into exactly that today.

00:48.62
Seth Macey
How to protect yourself, your rights, what you can do when things, when your photos or videos get used incorrectly. Is there anything else that people should listen out for? Is that pretty much it?

00:59.40
Aaron
Yeah, I just think it's important to hear this stuff. And as photographers, we're often very flattered if anyone wants to use our work and give stuff away for free sometimes ah or are very loosey-goosey with our usage.

01:12.98
Aaron
I think it's just important to understand that there are ways to protect your work and how to go about it.

01:19.56
Seth Macey
Yeah, and we shared some examples, or at least I did, of times where I thought I had been burned and actually turned it into a nice little licensing deal. um We talked about ceasing and desisting, what you can do, what you can charge, what you can ah offer a settlement. So without further ado, let's get into our episode with Matt Patterson.

INTERVIEW:

00:00:23.70
Seth Macey
Matt Patterson, it's been a minute since we saw you in Alaska. How have you been, my friend? How has the photo editing been?

00:00:31.44
Matt Patterson
Photo editing has been nonstop, nonstop. Yeah, it has been it has been a short minute, but it's you know it was a long time there. It was lots of fun.

00:00:41.22
Seth Macey
Do you miss us?

00:00:42.88
Matt Patterson
Oh, extremely, yes, yes.

00:00:45.04
Seth Macey
Like, add a 10. 10 like you're crying yourself to sleep. One, you don't give a damn.

00:00:50.66
Matt Patterson
I would say it's a good, solid, you don't want the answer. No, it's a, you know, I do miss it.

00:00:56.14
Seth Macey
Okay, that's probably true.

00:00:58.79
Matt Patterson
I do miss you guys. It was good. It was really, really good.

00:01:02.03
Seth Macey
That's probably true.

00:01:02.29
Aaron
Yeah, I was, honestly, i have these moments. I was hiking yesterday. I've been trying to get outside a lot in the last few days or in the last week. And just in the woods, struck with, like, God, Alaska is different than Connecticut.

00:01:17.10
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:01:17.84
Aaron
Just many times in the last last bit.

00:01:18.13
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yeah.

00:01:20.31
Seth Macey
That's profound.

00:01:21.73
Aaron
Taking ah photos of chipmunks and being like, this is not the same. This not the same.

00:01:26.85
Matt Patterson
I have not taken many photos since I got back, right? It's just the, you know, I'm taking it in. Like, like you said, it's, it's a lot different, right?

00:01:33.07
Aaron
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

00:01:34.40
Matt Patterson
I go into the woods almost every single day, but you know, it's a lot different.

00:01:35.08
Aaron
yep

00:01:39.77
Aaron
yeah

00:01:40.76
Seth Macey
Well, Matt, can you take us to school today? You are a patent and trademark attorney for those of those who don't know you.

00:01:48.36
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:01:48.55
Seth Macey
And I think we were coming back from our bear excursion when we really got chatting. I think every time we've met up, we've chatted about ah copyright, trademark, et cetera, obviously because you can't help yourself.

00:02:02.03
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:02:04.70
Seth Macey
And I'm genuinely interested. But I remember our conversation on the boat and I think I turned to you and said, you know what, this would be an incredibly useful conversation for a lot of photographers. So before we kind of pick up that conversation that you and I had for probably, it was probably a half hour, 45 minutes.

00:02:25.86
Matt Patterson
Sure. Yeah.

00:02:26.26
Seth Macey
um which Because you're not you're not short-winded. Aaron and I know that. You're very detailed, but that's that's that's what so that's what we want.

00:02:35.03
Aaron
It's a good thing. It's a good thing for a podcast format, you know.

00:02:36.38
Seth Macey
It's a good thing.

00:02:36.78
Matt Patterson
I got to take the good with the bad, man.

00:02:37.76
Seth Macey
It's a good thing.

00:02:40.81
Seth Macey
ah Tell people what you do on a day-to-day, and then we'll get we'll we'll we'll talk about how I think photographers can protect a lot of their images with proper copyright filing, etc.,

00:02:42.80
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yeah.

00:02:47.08
Matt Patterson
Sure.

00:02:49.94
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:02:53.16
Matt Patterson
Right. Yeah. So I am, and and thanks for having me. This is, I really appreciate this. It's a long time coming, I guess. But so I am an intellectual property attorney. Intellectual property is is lots of things, but the three main buckets are patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

00:03:12.21
Matt Patterson
um And so um I think today the focus is going to be on copyrights because the universe is so huge. but And within copyrights, there's a lot going on.

00:03:23.13
Matt Patterson
um And so i'm I want to talk ah about photography and how photographers and other artists can protect their works in copyrights.

00:03:35.71
Seth Macey
Yeah, absolutely. I think the, um, to start the, the biggest thing that you let me know is that people can fight. People should be, correct me if I'm wrong, sending batches of their photos to, uh, would it be the USPTO office?

00:03:51.68
Matt Patterson
Copyright office. Yeah. US copyright office.

00:03:52.97
Seth Macey
Copyright office.

00:03:54.48
Matt Patterson
So yeah, i mean, that's, that's right.

00:03:54.61
Seth Macey
And why do you,

00:03:56.45
Matt Patterson
And so, you know, copyright basics are that,

00:03:56.99
Seth Macey
yes

00:04:01.44
Matt Patterson
um Anything that's creative or rises the level creativity is protected by copyright in the United States. And it's it the author or the creator enjoys the ownership of that copyright the minute it's reduced to a tangible medium.

00:04:21.43
Matt Patterson
So if you sing a song out loud, nobody's recording it, it's not copyrighted. The minute somebody records it, boom, it's copyrighted. And the person, not the person recording it, but the person who who sang it or played the instrument is is the copyright owner.

00:04:38.45
Matt Patterson
Okay? So it's the minute you reduce it to a tangible medium. Now, what we're talking about is going the next level and protecting it, right? By registering it, right?

00:04:47.65
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:04:50.07
Matt Patterson
You do avail, can avail yourselves of copyright protection without registering it. It's just a really long road to hoe, right? And so for for photographers who are prolific and want to be commercial and want to put their stuff out there, um you want to you want to be able to protect yourself.

00:05:09.37
Matt Patterson
And it's it's really not that difficult. And then one one of the things you pointed to, Seth, was that you can actually do these things in batches, right?

00:05:16.78
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:05:17.68
Matt Patterson
at the At the copyright office, um you can do batches of photographs. I think right now it's up to 750, okay? And fifty and so You need titles for each one of them. It's a good idea to do a, you know, it's a good practice to do like a spreadsheet of all the ones you're going to upload and each one needs a title and it can be very, very simple, but it's something you want to keep track of.

00:05:43.90
Matt Patterson
And so, ah so um you can then batch 750 of these things. And what good does that do you? Well, if you then um license somebody to use your image,

00:05:58.87
Matt Patterson
And you guys have talked about licensing on the podcast before. you license somebody to do your images, you're giving them a time window under which to use the the photograph under the terms of the license, so how they can use it.

00:06:12.56
Matt Patterson
So if they go beyond the the term or beyond the scope of the license, you now have copyright protection to be able to go after them or or cease have more teeth in a cease and desist letter.

00:06:24.80
Matt Patterson
And you can just state that you know it's the image is copyrighted and here's the copyright number and cease and desist. Or you know there are statutory damages. That's the other huge benefit of copyright registration.

00:06:35.80
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:06:36.09
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:06:38.28
Matt Patterson
You can avail yourself of copy statutory damages, meaning you don't even have to prove that you've been harmed. It's just that somebody has infringed or taken some of your rights.

00:06:48.89
Seth Macey
Yeah, I think we were talking about how many photographers have just, from their Instagram, even haven't had a so ah photo stolen.

00:06:57.07
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:06:57.28
Seth Macey
And then it's this big, by by often large companies, that maybe don't know better, they should, or often just know. And they're like, ah, whatever, this is...

00:07:04.10
Matt Patterson
Right. Right.

00:07:06.27
Seth Macey
Joe Blow, what are they going to do? And I think what we were talking about was if you don't have your images copyrighted, that can be a long process to ah get compensation or to, I guess, even just prove that it is yours.

00:07:21.04
Matt Patterson
right

00:07:21.70
Seth Macey
Whereas you said if it's copyrighted, you have a

00:07:21.88
Matt Patterson
right

00:07:26.84
Seth Macey
in argued, like there's no argument that there's an infringement. And then I think the other interesting part was you told me that you can almost name your price for damages beyond a cease and desist.

00:07:37.57
Matt Patterson
Right. So, you know, just, to i mean, think about it, name your damages. Like I just had a client who got a cease and desist letter for using an image of Joe Biden giving a speech.

00:07:51.19
Matt Patterson
Okay. And it was ah one of the, um you know, major publications organizations that sent the cease and desist. And the number they said to settle was $1,438. one thousand four hundred and thirty eight dollars Like I don't know where they come up with that.

00:08:07.64
Matt Patterson
Right. But it could have been two thousand four and thirty.

00:08:08.10
Seth Macey
Right. Mm hmm.

00:08:09.96
Matt Patterson
It could have been five thousand dollars. It's a lot cheaper than getting into a fight with with somebody over it. You're going to pay it. Right.

00:08:16.92
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:08:17.13
Matt Patterson
You're going to you're and and you're going to educate yourself that, geez, I guess I shouldn't use that fit that photograph from the syndicate. right? Because, um you know, this is what happens, right? You should only use your your images or stock images. I mean, we could talk about that too, but damages, you know, can be, you know, up to like $35,000 per use, right?

00:08:40.72
Matt Patterson
under Under the statutes. I think that that's the number now. I mean, they do change, but but right, you you don't have to prove damages. They don't have to make sense, right? $1,438 makes sense. you makes no sense

00:08:51.64
Aaron
Yeah. yeah

00:08:52.35
Matt Patterson
but you know And the big thing is you want to stop people from using it. You're not really out there to make money off of somebody else using it. Litigation is never a good revenue generating strategy, but it's a good way to stop people in their tracks, right?

00:09:08.61
Matt Patterson
That guy, you know, that guy, i like his images, but he kind you know, he copyrights them. Maybe I should work with him and, you know, and licenses images legitimately, right? It's another, another benefit.

00:09:22.13
Seth Macey
Yeah, i've I've had a particular instance. And often the I've found that the outcome from reaching out to a business to stop using your image illegally often has a positive outcome. I mean, I reached out to a um ah business that was...

00:09:40.47
Seth Macey
and I'd done work for a years ago and they were using the work beyond the scope of the original agreement just because there were there was they were dealing the person I was dealing with had left the company and the new person using it just did.

00:09:46.85
Matt Patterson
right Right. Right. Right.

00:09:53.69
Seth Macey
It was not on purpose, in other words.

00:09:55.71
Matt Patterson
yeah

00:09:55.79
Seth Macey
And I sent ah an email basically saying, hey, you can't do what you're doing. And the other end was pretty apologetic. And ended up I said, hey, like this this could have this has made you tons of revenue.

00:10:08.77
Matt Patterson
right

00:10:11.01
Matt Patterson
right

00:10:11.39
Seth Macey
here's what Here's a number, ah dollar number that I would be comfortable with you sending me to make up for it.

00:10:18.03
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:10:18.20
Seth Macey
By the way, if you ever need perfect like professional photographer who unders who will give you legal licensing and who understands that stuff somewhat, ah like let's work together.

00:10:20.43
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:10:21.47
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:10:29.87
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:10:30.79
Seth Macey
And they're like, absolutely. So um I guess when you have...

00:10:32.88
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yeah.

00:10:36.13
Seth Macey
ah A settlement, in other words, it seems to be much more ah financially advantageous than than getting sued if you're a business

00:10:47.54
Matt Patterson
Great. Right. Right. If you get sued, you have to you know hire a lawyer. It goes by the hour. You have to explain all the things that you did or didn't do. Right. And you're in your diligence, what your defenses may be, whatever, versus I'm going to work with Seth on this.

00:11:03.62
Matt Patterson
And so but what you're talking about, I mean, it's a good point. Right. So you license license as a contract. Right. So you have a contractual arrangement with your licensee.

00:11:15.02
Matt Patterson
Right. But behind that are your copyrights. right So you are licensing them within the term and the scope of that license, and that's a contractual obligation that they have to fulfill to you.

00:11:28.85
Matt Patterson
You license them, they pay you, they fit within those terms. If they don't, now you have a breach of contract claim against them. And beyond that, you also have your your copyright, all the rights afforded to you by the copyright.

00:11:45.34
Seth Macey
Yeah, now if somebody's listening and they're thinking, well, it's obviously my image. I don't have this image copyrighted. Why can't I just do this? Why can't I just send a cease and desist? And if they tell me to piss off, I can just sue them anyways. what's what's the In other words, what's the advantage of having an official copyright in that circumstance?

00:12:04.82
Matt Patterson
Yeah, well, the the advantage is that now you have this independent agency, copyright office, verifying under penalty of perjury, because that's what you have to do when you when you um register your copyright.

00:12:21.27
Matt Patterson
You have this independent agency verifying. So you have this um you know legitimacy um vetted by an agency.

00:12:32.30
Matt Patterson
right? That then you can say, here it is, it's on file, here's the number, right? And um versus it's my image, okay, prove it, right?

00:12:42.38
Matt Patterson
Well, you know, I don't have the card anymore, or here it is on my hard drive, you know, and and and and that kind of stuff.

00:12:43.02
Aaron
Yeah.

00:12:49.59
Matt Patterson
So it really is linear, right? It's my image, here's the number, versus, you know, the back and forth of, you know, he said, she said kind of thing.

00:12:54.96
Aaron
yeah

00:12:59.71
Seth Macey
Right, that makes total sense.

00:13:01.22
Aaron
I have a question, Matt. we're We're shooting bears together.

00:13:03.03
Matt Patterson
Yep. Yep.

00:13:04.18
Aaron
We're shoulder to shoulder and we click the shutter at the same time, essentially creating this similar, very similar shot. And we send those both in to be copy written.

00:13:16.62
Aaron
Is there any sort of like a common shot? Is there any sort of common law in this in terms of like, oh, well, there's a thousand people there at the baseball game with the camera getting that same exact moment.

00:13:28.36
Aaron
ah You can't copyright that, that moment, that shot.

00:13:31.25
Matt Patterson
yeah

00:13:32.08
Aaron
Or is it very specific to like your data and your meta data that it came from your camera?

00:13:32.31
Matt Patterson
So that,

00:13:36.44
Matt Patterson
yeah.

00:13:37.58
Aaron
And if they use that one, then, then that's the deal deal.

00:13:39.40
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:13:42.02
Matt Patterson
So you are both authors of the same, of a similar image, but distinct copyrights. Right.

00:13:50.38
Aaron
Gotcha.

00:13:50.45
Matt Patterson
So you, you created your image. I created my image. Seth created his image, all of the same bear, but they're all slightly different.

00:13:53.83
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:13:57.58
Matt Patterson
Right. And they're all, they all rise to the level of creativity. Right. What, what it took to take that picture. Right. And you recorded it in a medium copyrights available to you.

00:14:08.93
Aaron
Yeah.

00:14:09.31
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:14:09.68
Aaron
Okay. That makes sense.

00:14:09.98
Matt Patterson
And if I license my thing, right. You can't squawk about it because it's not your thing.

00:14:15.43
Aaron
Right, right, right.

00:14:15.67
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:14:17.12
Aaron
I think for everyone listening, i would i would venture that less than 1% of us are going through this process of sending in batched photos and copywriting them.

00:14:29.42
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:14:30.54
Aaron
And yet without it, like you said, there there is an avenue to prove, but it's just a lot longer. You got to got to be organized, got to track down things. You might have to go back and forth.

00:14:39.13
Matt Patterson
but

00:14:39.59
Aaron
You might really have to prove that this is the time that you did it and

00:14:42.43
Matt Patterson
right

00:14:42.70
Aaron
God forbid you switch hard drives or don't have the original file or whatever it may be, just seems like a headache and much easier. So, Like you and I, we came back from Alaska with, who knows, 2000 photos, 1500 photos.

00:14:56.96
Aaron
are Are we copy going through this process? Would you recommend going through this process with the photos that we find ah most important to us with the photos, all photos, ah photos that we're working with clients specifically? Yeah.

00:15:13.75
Aaron
Because I imagine this is somewhat financial and somewhat ah takes time and organization for people to go through with this.

00:15:13.88
Matt Patterson
Yep.

00:15:17.33
Matt Patterson
Yep. Yep.

00:15:22.01
Aaron
What's the recommendation with in this day and age when we're taking thousands of photos of like which photos we're picking to actually go through with this?

00:15:30.16
Matt Patterson
So we all, I think you wanna work it into your workflow, right? Meaning we came back from a trip. We're going to um down select, down select, edit,

00:15:43.23
Matt Patterson
and then pick from those edits. And so, okay, here's my, you know, here are the ones that I think I'm going to include on my Instagram or, you know, on my website, whatever, whatever your workflow is to get to, to where you're going to publish it before you publish it.

00:16:01.80
Matt Patterson
there's There's reasons to do it before. You can always do it after. But you can group all of those photos. so now I'm going to add 100 to my or 75 or whatever it is to my website because these are the ones that I've gone through the editing in my workflow and the ones that I think are going to make money for me.

00:16:22.82
Matt Patterson
i'm gonna So you should make it part of your workflow. now Now, if you're doing something year-round and making commercial – you know, shoots and things like that, then you might want to do it quarterly, right?

00:16:35.77
Matt Patterson
You might want to do it so every six months. You have to, you can only batch photos that are taken in the same year, calendar year, right?

00:16:47.49
Matt Patterson
so So that's why if you work it into your workflow, it it may it may fit better than, you know, I'm going to do everything from the last 12 months. Well, you can't do that if if it spans the the overlap of the year. So, yeah, work it into your workflow, right?

00:17:02.11
Matt Patterson
it's It's not very expensive. There's lots of tutorials on the copyright website. It's called Eco, E-C-O, right? Electronic Copyright Office, E-C-O.

00:17:11.08
Aaron
Yep. Mm-hmm.

00:17:13.31
Matt Patterson
um And it's free to um to create a ah username. You can go on there. You can play with it. You can look at the videos and teach yourself how to do it, right? It's it's not, you know, the other areas of of IP law that I practice, I try to couch people not or advise people not to do that, right? But with copyright, I think you can learn how to do it.

00:17:36.70
Matt Patterson
And you can even run trial balloons, right? Because it's 75 bucks unless they've changed the the the fees.

00:17:41.81
Aaron
Yeah.

00:17:43.65
Matt Patterson
And so, yeah, work it into your workflow and make it part of your process.

00:17:48.78
Aaron
And I would imagine people that have a website and put up high quality imagery on their website and are trying to sell it where someone can right click, save that image and then use it.

00:17:58.15
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:17:58.87
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:17:59.48
Aaron
yeah I've heard of people creating their own stores with other people's images and selling prints and just their marketing is pretty good and they sell prints from other people.

00:17:59.77
Matt Patterson
Yep. All

00:18:04.83
Matt Patterson
right.

00:18:07.24
Matt Patterson
Right, right.

00:18:08.34
Aaron
So would imagine if you were, especially if you're trying to sell or use your prints any, in any way, financially, this is super important to go through this process and protect yourself.

00:18:20.13
Matt Patterson
Sure, yeah.

00:18:20.53
Aaron
Is that, is that a fair.

00:18:21.00
Matt Patterson
And so, yeah, I mean, one of the, one of the i mean, it's less important or less less effective now is you can put up low quality images, okay?

00:18:31.74
Aaron
Right.

00:18:32.27
Matt Patterson
on your website, ah you know, there's gigapixel and ah and others that where you can make it better for people if you wanted to go through all that. um

00:18:40.33
Aaron
yeah

00:18:41.10
Matt Patterson
But yeah, I think that um it's it's much better to make it part of your workflow, register your copyrights and move on. If somebody does take your images, then you know, you have immediate recourse.

00:18:55.01
Matt Patterson
Right. And I had had a client who did um laser fat loss equipment sales and they had before and afters and they're and they didn't register any of their copyrights and their competitor took them and ran.

00:19:11.23
Matt Patterson
Right. And it it it took a lot of wrangling to to get those guys back because the images worked for them and they had a much better marketing machine than than my client did. Right.

00:19:20.29
Aaron
Yeah.

00:19:21.19
Matt Patterson
So, yeah, lots of anecdotal lessons learned.

00:19:23.62
Aaron
Yeah.

00:19:25.43
Seth Macey
So we're talking about incorporating the copyright process into workflow, which I think is brilliant. Question, at what stage do you think it makes the most sense?

00:19:37.17
Seth Macey
Pre-edit? After I've edited? Like what happens if i what happens if i change the edit on a photo?

00:19:42.80
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:19:46.23
Seth Macey
Right? should i be Should I be copywriting RAWs?

00:19:46.74
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:19:52.32
Matt Patterson
So it gets into different areas. i mean, it opens up the question. The question opens up a lot of areas. So um it protects.

00:20:03.76
Matt Patterson
So if you were... to copyright the RAWs, right? Then you own the copyright in those.

00:20:10.02
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:20:11.99
Matt Patterson
It depends on the extent of the edits that you do. Your edits are what, the the result of your edits, the image after editing of a RAW, it's called the derivative work, okay?

00:20:27.55
Matt Patterson
You derived the final work from your RAW producing a derivative work. Only the author has the right to produce derivative works.

00:20:39.24
Matt Patterson
Okay. So you, by owning the copyright in the original, have the right to produce derivatives. Okay. So if someone else were to, so, so now you do a derivative and you like that and you post it and somebody takes it and they make a derivative of that, right?

00:20:59.13
Matt Patterson
You still own the copyright, right? That original copyright, covers you for derivative works.

00:21:05.99
Seth Macey
um Okay, got it. so So just to be clear, if I've copyrighted the raw, I make an edit, which becomes a derivative work, and someone, a just simply steals the derivative work or makes a derivative of a derivative, they're still violating copyright from the original raw.

00:21:19.88
Matt Patterson
Right. Right. Right. Correct. Yep.

00:21:23.56
Seth Macey
Got it.

00:21:23.83
Matt Patterson
Yep. But, but the thing, the thing that it opens up and we we can get into this a little bit, but it's really a rabbit hole, is the whole yeah is the whole AI portion of editing, right?

00:21:35.24
Seth Macey
Right.

00:21:35.44
Aaron
Hmph. Hmph.

00:21:35.73
Matt Patterson
Like, who's the author now? When you take a raw and you edit it using AI techniques and produce a derivative work, who's really the author of that work, right? Right?

00:21:49.55
Seth Macey
i don't know who is.

00:21:50.99
Matt Patterson
Yeah. So it depends on the level of of editing and the level the level of ai manipulation. Okay.

00:21:57.36
Seth Macey
Well, because if my understanding is that AI technology is based off of real images. So let's say you add an arm or something.

00:22:05.63
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:22:06.38
Seth Macey
Couldn't a photographer say, hey, that's the exact arm from my image that you've put onto yours. I'm suing you.

00:22:12.86
Matt Patterson
Yeah. It has to be a substantial amount. i mean, it's it's very dicey and it's a fluid area of the law, but um like if you take a, just take this as an example. If you take an image and drag it into like Dolly or something, right?

00:22:26.89
Matt Patterson
um And say, you know, make this into an artwork in the form of Picasso, right? And it makes a painting like image from your photograph.

00:22:39.33
Matt Patterson
You really don't own the copyright in that anymore, right? It's been substantially changed, right? To the point where you don't own the copyright. in that So who does, right?

00:22:51.54
Matt Patterson
And right now the Supreme court has said, nobody owns it. Right.

00:22:56.27
Seth Macey
So what does that mean?

00:22:56.53
Matt Patterson
Yep.

00:22:57.19
Seth Macey
So I couldn't, so if I took a bear photograph, threw it into, I don't know what you use, Dolly was what you said.

00:23:04.47
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Whatever.

00:23:05.25
Seth Macey
And i and I manipulate it to be like a Picasso painting.

00:23:05.63
Matt Patterson
yeah

00:23:08.01
Seth Macey
I can't go and copyright that new AI artwork.

00:23:12.55
Matt Patterson
no. Cause who's the author, right?

00:23:16.22
Seth Macey
Well, I would have assumed that it was a derivative of my work, but you're saying no.

00:23:16.34
Matt Patterson
You, didn you,

00:23:21.43
Matt Patterson
Right, because because you yeah a new image was created, right? But because it was substantially changed, a new image was created and you were not the creator.

00:23:32.66
Matt Patterson
You were not the author or the artist of that, right?

00:23:34.58
Aaron
interesting

00:23:36.19
Seth Macey
The AI bot was.

00:23:36.50
Matt Patterson
Right. Right, right. So they're even, you know, so so they being the courts are talking about, you know, is it the coders, the AI coders? Is it, you know, because they write the algorithms that then, you know, mine the, you know, Picasso prints, if you will, right?

00:23:54.32
Seth Macey
Holy.

00:23:54.63
Aaron
yeah yeah

00:23:54.64
Matt Patterson
That teach the model. Yeah, I mean, that's what I said. It's a real rabbit hole if you get into the whole AI side of all this, right?

00:24:01.57
Aaron
yeah you're really chasing the technology with the laws right to try to figure it out

00:24:02.58
Matt Patterson
So, yeah, yeah.

00:24:04.77
Seth Macey
Yeah, I guess then we'll see the day when potentially could an AI model file a copyright? Yeah.

00:24:12.95
Matt Patterson
So no, no, because it's only available to humans, right?

00:24:17.12
Aaron
hmm

00:24:17.26
Matt Patterson
It's right in the statute. And so but the it's really funny the way the law has developed in this area because it's the whole monkey um camera case, right? So a while back, guy dropped his iPhone into the monkey cage.

00:24:33.98
Matt Patterson
Monkey took a bunch of selfies, right? And then the guy got his camera back, phone, I think it was a phone, and went to register those images. And Copyright Office said, you weren't the author, the monkey was.

00:24:49.00
Matt Patterson
So the ASPCA on behalf of the monkey filed um ah copyright applications for those photos and they were rejected because

00:24:51.16
Aaron
Huh.

00:25:00.79
Matt Patterson
the monkey couldn't be an author because he's not, or, you know, couldn't be the author. That's that that's the term they use is author um because it's not a human.

00:25:11.26
Seth Macey
That's so interesting. So if i if I went to... but Here's an example, okay? Remember I wanted photos of... so Me using the Swarovski binoculars on that hike when we took a break.

00:25:23.19
Seth Macey
I handed my camera to Aaron because I wanted the photos to be on my camera, on my car.

00:25:25.38
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:25:28.23
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:25:29.28
Seth Macey
I didn't want him to have to deal with it. said, hey, do you mind snapping a couple photos of me?

00:25:30.99
Matt Patterson
right

00:25:32.90
Seth Macey
I've just always assumed in that instance where you hand your camera to somebody, you say, take a photo of me and can you send me this, that I maybe own it. I guess I don't. So I couldn't copyright those.

00:25:42.99
Seth Macey
so

00:25:43.24
Aaron
I've already ah filed those with Matt, by the way.

00:25:45.00
Matt Patterson
Right, right. Yeah. Aaron owns them.

00:25:46.57
Aaron
Yeah.

00:25:47.41
Matt Patterson
Aaron owns them.

00:25:47.47
Aaron
Yeah.

00:25:48.39
Matt Patterson
So it gets into a different aspect here, Seth, right? So he can assign those rights to you. Okay.

00:25:56.09
Seth Macey
How would he do that?

00:25:57.80
Matt Patterson
Well, he could do it you know very simply by you know just an email or an agreement, right? um And if you go to copy, then you can then copyright those images and say how you obtain those ah rights. You obtain those rights through contract with him, right?

00:26:16.43
Matt Patterson
so so that So that's how you can then register the copyright in that image that Aaron took.

00:26:16.72
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:26:23.00
Matt Patterson
And then you'd be the copyright owner by contract, right?

00:26:25.29
Seth Macey
Right.

00:26:25.62
Aaron
yeah Seth Haley ears are perking up right now.

00:26:28.96
Seth Macey
Yeah, she's lots of, she's the author of a lot of stuff.

00:26:31.25
Aaron
Yeah.

00:26:32.64
Seth Macey
She's the author of a lot of, yeah, so so exactly.

00:26:32.89
Matt Patterson
Right, right.

00:26:34.86
Seth Macey
So, I mean, if, so I couldn't edit those photos, go to Swarovski and say, hey, do you want to license these? Because technically Aaron owns them.

00:26:45.55
Matt Patterson
Right, unless he assigns those rights to you.

00:26:47.61
Seth Macey
Because then Aaron would sue me and then the show would be over because we'd get in a big fight.

00:26:52.36
Matt Patterson
Big fight, right, right, right.

00:26:52.66
Aaron
yeah Follow, follow the money.

00:26:54.86
Matt Patterson
isn't Isn't that what lawyers do?

00:26:55.04
Seth Macey
That's so interesting.

00:26:56.02
Matt Patterson
They just create fights, right? so

00:26:57.99
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:26:57.99
Seth Macey
Yeah, that's so interesting.

00:26:58.19
Matt Patterson
um But it gets into another concept. it's It's a myth amongst um ah photographers that, you know, if you get hired by somebody, the person who hired you, you know, automatically owns the images, right?

00:27:15.79
Matt Patterson
And so so it depends on the relationship, right?

00:27:15.78
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:27:18.18
Matt Patterson
Lots of times you're... perfectly fine handing those images over because you've been paid ah fair wage to do your you know do your work, right?

00:27:28.91
Matt Patterson
And so the contracts that you sign with those people that you're working for typically have the magic words work made for hire, okay? So the works that you're doing are being made because they hired you.

00:27:44.83
Matt Patterson
And so company hire Ceph, And Seth signs a contract that says works made for hire company a owns those images, right?

00:27:54.05
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:27:54.30
Seth Macey
Exclusively.

00:27:56.03
Matt Patterson
They, they own them. Yeah. Right. So they own all right title and interest.

00:27:57.99
Seth Macey
Yeah. So they can do it they can do whatever they want.

00:28:00.73
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:28:01.29
Seth Macey
So, yeah, I think we we talked about this, too. So let's... I feel like... I've done this before. Aaron's done this before. Everybody has done this in their beginner stage where you work with a company or a client just verbally.

00:28:15.45
Seth Macey
you know

00:28:16.17
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:28:16.13
Seth Macey
It's maybe not a ton of money, whatever. And yeah they pay you and you hand them a folder of images.

00:28:19.15
Matt Patterson
It

00:28:23.29
Seth Macey
Is it assumed that you are giving up your rights when you do that?

00:28:29.48
Matt Patterson
comes down to a bunch of factors, right? So absent an agreement, the author, the photographer still owns the copyright, right?

00:28:39.44
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:28:39.70
Matt Patterson
Meaning The person who you handed them over to, company a if they go to register your copyright, they cannot say that they were works made for hire because they weren't.

00:28:51.67
Matt Patterson
Right. They weren't contractually assigned because they weren't. Right. And so there was no agreement, absent an agreement, the author still owns them. The difference would be, hey, Seth, you know you're a photographer.

00:29:04.84
Matt Patterson
you know Come on set. It's our set. We just want an extra photographer. Here's a camera. here's ah So you're using their equipment, their setup, their – so it then becomes you know you're more like an employee.

00:29:17.73
Matt Patterson
So then the line gets blurred a little bit.

00:29:18.50
Seth Macey
Right.

00:29:19.81
Matt Patterson
Like what did you really do? i would i would argue it would have to go a long way before you would give up your authorship to those folks, Right. So, but, you know, lots of early people, you know, people who are just emerging into the commercial world, you know, they'd do anything to get their stuff published.

00:29:37.60
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:29:38.08
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:29:38.50
Matt Patterson
But, but no, you know, it's much better to get all of that defined up front. Right. And, and, and assuming a company knows is is a bad assumption because lots of companies, even semi sophisticated companies don't know anything about copyright and who actually owns the right title and interest to those images.

00:29:44.29
Seth Macey
yeah

00:29:48.90
Aaron
Yeah.

00:29:58.92
Seth Macey
Right. So just to be clear, absent of agreement, you haven't talked about licensing or who owns what. That doesn't exist. They pay you money in exchange for an agreed upon amount of assets. You give them to them.

00:30:09.97
Seth Macey
You are not handing over your rights is what you're saying in most cases.

00:30:14.10
Matt Patterson
Right, right.

00:30:15.16
Seth Macey
So what happens if that company said, oh, yeah, like we just want them for socials, right? We're going to post them on our Instagram. And then a year later, it's in the cover of a magazine.

00:30:26.82
Seth Macey
um Or let's say it's the ah banner photo.

00:30:31.78
Aaron
the billboard in Times Square.

00:30:33.22
Seth Macey
ban That's a little extreme. But like let's say banner photo of their website.

00:30:37.22
Matt Patterson
Right, right.

00:30:37.74
Seth Macey
um Do I have any leg to stand on?

00:30:41.70
Matt Patterson
You do, you do, but it's, you know, and especially if it's ah if you copyrighted it, right? Because then they would have to show that there was some um some rights in your registered copyright that were transferred to them, right?

00:30:56.91
Matt Patterson
So the rights that you're transferring to them are for social, right? that's the Those are the words.

00:31:01.66
Seth Macey
And that those those rights just get transferred through conversation? Like those are verbal?

00:31:06.44
Matt Patterson
So they could be, they could be.

00:31:07.70
Seth Macey
Those are contracts? Just text messages, even DMs, emails? Okay.

00:31:10.40
Matt Patterson
it Sure. Emails, DM, anything in writing is much better than a verbal. Right. So it goes, you know, it goes in that direction. Then assigned writing is the best. Right. So that's what you really want to be pushing for is assigned writing where both parties agree on what the terms are. And, you know, and then you have to be savvy enough in your ability um and You know, and and societies have these, you know, like PPA and others have these form templates that I urge people to go and look at and use um in their business. Some may think it's overkill.

00:31:43.49
Matt Patterson
Some may think it'll scare people away. But guess what? It defines what your rights are. Right. And so, yes, you're giving up some of your rights. You'll see copyright, all rights reserved, right? You see those on the footers of things.

00:31:56.12
Matt Patterson
um So the rights that you have not reserved to yourself, you've given away, right? So you've you've reserved all other rights except for social media.

00:32:09.28
Seth Macey
Yeah. So have I, sorry, I'm, I'm, I'm learning right now.

00:32:13.13
Aaron
Yeah.

00:32:13.57
Seth Macey
So have I given away those rights? Have I given away ownership of those images for socials in my example? Like now they own those photo photos entirely for socials, or do I still have some ownership?

00:32:28.44
Seth Macey
Maybe that's not the right word.

00:32:30.05
Matt Patterson
No, yeah, no i think I think the word you're looking for is exclusivity, right?

00:32:34.02
Aaron
yeah

00:32:34.06
Seth Macey
Sure.

00:32:34.28
Matt Patterson
so So if you sell them to them, sell them to company A or license them to company A for ah use in socials, can you still use them on your portfolio or your socials, right?

00:32:46.73
Matt Patterson
So say socials, so that there's a total overlap of the use, right?

00:32:47.35
Seth Macey
I would. um

00:32:50.40
Seth Macey
Yeah. Right.

00:32:51.20
Matt Patterson
Yeah, can you use them? Yeah, if you have not agreed that they're exclusive, then yes, right? Then you can use them.

00:32:58.83
Seth Macey
right

00:32:59.72
Matt Patterson
Right. And there are other words you can use in, you know, in a contract like exclusive except as to the author. Right. So you're reserving all rights to yourself, but then licensing somebody to certain rights.

00:33:16.06
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:33:17.46
Aaron
Interesting. I think, think a lot of people out there and I'm speaking from my own brain as someone that's a creative or maybe more on the artistic side and the business and law side of things,

00:33:30.05
Aaron
gets into the trap of like, I just hope they like them.

00:33:34.00
Matt Patterson
right

00:33:34.02
Aaron
Like, and, and that's that, and that's enough.

00:33:34.99
Matt Patterson
great

00:33:37.72
Aaron
And we hand them over and we hand over the entire farm. And next thing you know, or maybe you don't know because it heads in the sand, they're using things in many different ways to improve revenue, to improve profitability, to and improve their entire business. And you kind of get left behind.

00:33:56.25
Aaron
I do think it's important at least to explore, like this conversation and get past the feeling of overwhelm.

00:34:02.74
Matt Patterson
All

00:34:04.63
Aaron
Like that's the, that's kind of the feeling that I get with this is like, I'd, I'd rather just get paid for the job and be okay with it and kind of move on and, and and not look into it too deeply and not have to like,

00:34:12.14
Matt Patterson
right. Yep.

00:34:18.50
Matt Patterson
yep

00:34:18.56
Aaron
come into these problems resurface them and be like, oh they're using my thing and maybe a wrong way. I'm going to, I have to get into a conflict.

00:34:25.80
Seth Macey
Bye.

00:34:26.21
Aaron
No one likes that.

00:34:26.72
Matt Patterson
Right, right

00:34:27.01
Aaron
So I think it is important to kind of hear this and ah learn from people. Seth's shared experiences on here where he's been burned.

00:34:36.71
Matt Patterson
right.

00:34:37.01
Aaron
Uh, Luckily, that and far as I know of, I haven't had many or big things, but it is one of those things that does happen, especially as you're trying to put your stuff out there, especially as you get better, especially as you're promoting different companies and products and clients.

00:34:41.61
Matt Patterson
Right. Right.

00:34:51.63
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:34:51.97
Aaron
ah It's very easy for things to maybe not even on purpose, but be used the wrong way.

00:34:52.38
Matt Patterson
right

00:34:57.57
Aaron
And knowing this information, i think is very helpful as the first step for sure.

00:35:02.88
Matt Patterson
Yeah. So, we you know, right now it's it's knowing what you didn't know. Right. so now now you make people aware of things.

00:35:09.91
Aaron
Right.

00:35:12.19
Matt Patterson
You have these rights. You have these abilities to do things. And but but you're you're willingly going to give them up for whatever the opportunity is at this point in your career.

00:35:24.96
Matt Patterson
Right. So, OK, I'm not going to get paid for those, but I'm going to retain ownership. Right. I'm not going to get paid for those. And I guess I'm giving away something. Well, at least now you know what you're giving up.

00:35:36.75
Matt Patterson
Right. So if you just give them away absent an agreement, it'd be a big fight to try and get them back. Right. So and a big fight against you know something you made no money on.

00:35:47.12
Aaron
Yeah. Is it, a we think of art as like this sort of abstract, thing, like here's a photo, you know, and, and I think also people get, people get pretty good at photography pretty quickly, almost faster than they know all the ins and outs of what it can do.

00:35:57.75
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:36:05.67
Aaron
And we had Adam Coppola on here talking about, man, like he, he's, he's billing for thinking about a project.

00:36:13.47
Matt Patterson
right

00:36:14.08
Aaron
Uh, it, which is the work that goes into making the project. Like he knows every aspect of it and it knows how valuable every aspect of it is. And I think, listen back to that, we want to have him on again, but ah that is just, that was an eyeopening episode as well in terms of like how much goes into this and the value that it can give

00:36:29.86
Matt Patterson
Right. Right. Right.

00:36:34.54
Aaron
incorporate, I think people get great at photography and companies come like, Hey, this is my example. Like, do you want a free jacket? If you give us your whole portfolio of all the photos of you wearing that jacket.

00:36:42.08
Matt Patterson
right right

00:36:45.25
Aaron
And it's like, yeah, sure. And we get really excited about the attention first and then kind of maybe have to go through a bad thing before you realize, Oh, like I got it.

00:36:56.61
Aaron
I got to do this in a different way. And I think when it's abstract like that, I think a good way to think of it is you have a really expensive vehicle that you want to lease out to certain people to use.

00:37:00.12
Matt Patterson
right All right. right.

00:37:11.11
Aaron
So like you have a thing, a valuable thing that you're allowing them to borrow for a gala, a prom, whatever it may be. Here are the terms. You get to use my car for two days.

00:37:24.22
Aaron
Uh, it needs to be clean. You can't give it to someone else to drive. You need to have your light.

00:37:28.59
Matt Patterson
right

00:37:29.43
Aaron
Like you have to think of it as an actual commodity.

00:37:30.42
Matt Patterson
i mean

00:37:32.38
Aaron
That's still yours.

00:37:32.73
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yep.

00:37:33.97
Aaron
That eventually comes back to you. It's not gone forever. You're not just handing over. And I think a lot of people think like, oh, I'm staying at a Airbnb and they're, they're paying me a couple hundred dollars and I hand them a folder of full. Those are theirs.

00:37:47.00
Aaron
That's their, that's their photos to do whatever with.

00:37:47.19
Matt Patterson
Right. Right.

00:37:49.89
Aaron
And you can agree to do that if you want to, but understanding,

00:37:52.07
Matt Patterson
Right. Yeah.

00:37:53.84
Aaron
that they actually are yours and you you have the, the say on how they are used.

00:38:00.67
Matt Patterson
Right. And I think that, you know, the two of you have your viewers and and listeners, you've you've given them lots of examples of, you know, how we may jump in and do things. Right.

00:38:11.64
Matt Patterson
But if you aren't aware of what you're giving up, then

00:38:14.75
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:14.91
Matt Patterson
you know, you're really jumping in blindly. If you're willing to do it for that jacket, then okay, right? You knew knew you were giving up X, Y, and Z, you of your rights to be able to get that jacket, right?

00:38:20.24
Aaron
yeah

00:38:26.95
Matt Patterson
But if you don't know what you're really giving up, then, you know, you're really not, it's not fair dealing, right?

00:38:33.67
Aaron
Right.

00:38:33.64
Seth Macey
Yeah, I think it's specifically difficult for beginners where they finally get attention from a big brand. It's like, oh, my God, sweet.

00:38:41.53
Matt Patterson
Right. Right.

00:38:43.26
Seth Macey
I'm on my way. that's when the problem that's That's when you want to be thinking about what we've just described, right?

00:38:44.65
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:38:49.17
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:38:49.99
Seth Macey
um You know, one thing I like to do recently when pricing new contracts is, okay, what would I, how much money will make me not pissed off if this gets used in unlimited ways forever?

00:39:05.73
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:39:05.80
Seth Macey
Do you know what I mean?

00:39:05.89
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:39:06.78
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:39:06.83
Seth Macey
And then, yeah.

00:39:06.90
Matt Patterson
What are your boundaries, right? Set your boundaries, mental boundaries, right?

00:39:10.81
Aaron
yeah

00:39:10.80
Seth Macey
yeah, if this got used in forever in any way, what would I not be annoyed at and trying to charge as close to that price as possible?

00:39:11.92
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:39:15.93
Matt Patterson
Right. right

00:39:21.11
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:39:21.17
Seth Macey
like That's a very dumbed down version, I understand, but it's a good framework because then you don't you don't get pissed off or have regret when you see your content used in a certain way.

00:39:26.32
Matt Patterson
is.

00:39:32.89
Seth Macey
you know Obviously, working with contracts and licensing agreements, but that's still kind of a fundamental concept I like to think of.

00:39:39.42
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:39:39.39
Seth Macey
Especially if they you know if they void a term. Obviously, would enforce that, but still, at least you're kind of youre somewhat covered.

00:39:48.70
Matt Patterson
right right Right. Again, that's a breach of contract, right? I mean, something something for viewers and listeners listeners to think about.

00:39:53.50
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:39:58.93
Matt Patterson
That's breach of contract, right? You have an agreement between you and the other party and... If they don't live up to it, it's a breach, right? But I mean, you know, back to your your to your point, you know, you go to Alaska, how much did it, how much preparation did you do beforehand?

00:40:15.89
Matt Patterson
You paid all this money to go to Alaska, you, you know, you spent all this time in Alaska taking these but these photographs and these, that you know, and then you come back and you say, okay, what What is that image worth to me?

00:40:29.59
Matt Patterson
Right. It's very difficult to put in terms of of of a dollar amount that you put in to get that one image. Right. But the way that you're thinking about it is, you know, what amount would you need to pay me so I don't get pissed off if if I do see it, you know, in the gray zone, if you will.

00:40:46.95
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:40:47.00
Seth Macey
Exactly.

00:40:47.24
Aaron
Yeah.

00:40:47.94
Matt Patterson
So, yeah, I think that that's a good way to think about it.

00:40:48.23
Aaron
Yeah.

00:40:50.47
Aaron
And search.

00:40:50.49
Seth Macey
Because then you could choose you could choose to let it go or or not.

00:40:53.26
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:40:53.31
Seth Macey
You know, could like, eh.

00:40:53.56
Aaron
Yeah.

00:40:53.73
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:40:55.41
Aaron
Yeah. It's search. So in this gray zone, uh, I have a great photo from Alaska. I, I licensed it to a company for a year, three years from like now,

00:41:09.36
Aaron
Am I still concerned? Like, are they following the rules? Am I back searching my photos? Am i just waiting for someone to say like, Hey, this looks like your photo. Like, what are the chances that I'm going to run into a misuse of my photo?

00:41:23.59
Aaron
And is there another step that now I have to take under my belt and do yearly of like searching for my photos?

00:41:23.68
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:41:32.17
Aaron
Or is there a company that does that you can load in all your stuff or like, I don't know.

00:41:32.30
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yep. Yep.

00:41:35.89
Aaron
You, you understand what i'm asking.

00:41:37.58
Matt Patterson
Absolutely. I mean, there are companies out there where, okay, so you take your golden nuggets, right? And you say, search, you know, do a standing search on these images, right?

00:41:51.57
Matt Patterson
Because I want um want not only compliance with my licensees, but I want infringers to be caught, right? So your contract says x y and z and the company's going to send you um ah updates.

00:42:07.25
Matt Patterson
Here's how it's being used, right? Or we found no use of it, right? And you'll be able to go through the results of that. So there are companies that you can hire to do that, right? And I've never done it with copyrights, but there are, i know that there are companies out there that do it. I do it with trademarks for my clients all the time, right?

00:42:23.77
Matt Patterson
Is my trademark being infringed, right? So, you know, they, you know, and and for trademarks, it's like a hundred bucks a year. So for copyrights, I'm sure, because you can automate all this stuff, right? there's There's a number of search engine, Google images, whatever, right?

00:42:37.02
Aaron
Yep.

00:42:39.85
Matt Patterson
That are pretty darn good.

00:42:42.58
Aaron
Yep. Yep. That's interesting.

00:42:45.62
Seth Macey
One thing I've also been doing, i don't know if you guys do this during the Lightroom export phase. I don't know, Matt, do you use Lightroom?

00:42:51.44
Matt Patterson
Yes. Yep.

00:42:52.31
Seth Macey
Yeah. you can You can link your Instagram account to your, or you can assign almost like a ah copyright to be embedded in the metadata.

00:43:03.91
Matt Patterson
Oh, yes.

00:43:05.56
Aaron
Hmm.

00:43:06.29
Matt Patterson
Yep.

00:43:06.32
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:43:07.42
Matt Patterson
Yep.

00:43:07.66
Seth Macey
um What do you think about that kind of feature?

00:43:09.17
Matt Patterson
Yes.

00:43:10.67
Seth Macey
Is that something people should be doing?

00:43:12.97
Matt Patterson
It adds to the to the amount of metadata that goes along with that image, right? So some people some people get rid of metadata, right?

00:43:23.26
Seth Macey
Yeah, right.

00:43:24.02
Matt Patterson
For whatever reason, file size or whatever it is, right?

00:43:24.12
Seth Macey
right

00:43:27.26
Matt Patterson
They get rid of metadata, um but the more metadata, the better for you, right? So yes, I think that that you know the copyright information that Lightroom allows you to tag into the metadata is really worthwhile, right?

00:43:42.28
Seth Macey
Yeah, it says light room Lightroom allows you to embed content credentials during export, which includes your name, social media links, such as Instagram, and the images, editing history, which I think is, I mean, why not, right?

00:43:52.64
Seth Macey
Why would you why not do that?

00:43:53.19
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:43:54.55
Aaron
Yeah.

00:43:54.58
Matt Patterson
Right. Right. No, I think it's great. Add to that metadata, especially, you know, in Lightroom, they automate it for you. Right. Boom. Right.

00:44:01.50
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:44:02.30
Matt Patterson
So.

00:44:02.52
Seth Macey
So can we run through a scenario just for people? um

00:44:05.29
Matt Patterson
sure

00:44:06.27
Seth Macey
Let's say ah runningworld.com. stole my image from my Instagram. They saw it there and they use it on a blog post that's full of advertisements. So they're making revenue off the article.

00:44:21.76
Seth Macey
How would I, how would I start? You know, where would I start as i'm I'm pissed off? I'm mad. I see that I'm not getting paid. What would you advise people to to do through that, throughout that process?

00:44:32.82
Matt Patterson
So runner's world, I mean, that's a, you know, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a big, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:37.10
Seth Macey
I'm just using it as an example. I don't want to get deep deep defamation here. Just surely.

00:44:41.04
Matt Patterson
Right, right. Some, some national magazine on running uses your image of a runner at, at the New York City Marathon.

00:44:44.17
Seth Macey
Yes. Sure. Yes. Yes.

00:44:50.33
Matt Patterson
Boom, right.

00:44:50.61
Seth Macey
Not, not running world.

00:44:51.67
Matt Patterson
Not runner's world.

00:44:52.31
Seth Macey
Don't see.

00:44:52.47
Matt Patterson
I have never heard of that magazine.

00:44:52.95
Seth Macey
Don't sue me.

00:44:54.22
Matt Patterson
So the thing to do is to look in the front of the magazine, right. Print magazine will have, you know, the the contact people listed there, the editors, right? So you you find the correct contact for that listing and you reach out to them and say, hey, that's my image, right? And, you know, I've copyrighted it. Here's the copyright number. If you haven't, right, you can say, you know, I can i can prove through metadata, you know, if need be, want to solve this amicably. So I would write a letter, right?

00:45:26.14
Matt Patterson
if i If I were the owner, not not an attorney, Try to resolve it immediately if you think you know what but you think you could get for it, right?

00:45:34.78
Seth Macey
Yeah, because I...

00:45:35.60
Matt Patterson
But if you can't solve it amicably, then I would you know i would hire a kind copyright attorney.

00:45:40.81
Seth Macey
So I guess my question is, it seems like from when we were when we've been chatting, cease and desist is kind of always the first move. Hey, stop using this.

00:45:50.34
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:45:50.50
Seth Macey
And I think I said to you, if it were me, that's not enough. I see advertisements all over this blog post.

00:45:56.85
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:45:57.62
Seth Macey
you know For you to just stop using it, let's say the article is a year old or or however, people Google is still in.

00:45:57.98
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:46:01.94
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:46:04.09
Seth Macey
Maybe it's a great article and Google is still indexing and a lot of people are reading it a lot of people are seeing those ads.

00:46:08.43
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:46:08.61
Seth Macey
I mean, for you to just stop using it isn't enough for me. like I'm not getting paid and I...

00:46:12.35
Matt Patterson
Right. It's a win. It's a win for them. Yeah.

00:46:15.04
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:46:15.41
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:46:15.56
Seth Macey
it's it's so you yeah oh For them, it's like, oh, well, we got to use it for a year. Okay, whatever. And I could see people maliciously gaming that system.

00:46:21.04
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:46:24.43
Seth Macey
um So in that scenario, would you would you advise people say, hey cease and desist, and here's my number to make me away?

00:46:33.29
Matt Patterson
Yes.

00:46:33.60
Seth Macey
go away

00:46:34.70
Matt Patterson
Yep. Yep. And that's exactly what the syndicate letter said to my client the other day was, you know, you had this in your blog post. I see you've taken it down.

00:46:46.29
Matt Patterson
Right. So that was not the same exact situation, but you had it up for a significant amount of time. And here's the number. Right.

00:46:54.28
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:46:54.62
Matt Patterson
and And, and if you don't, you know, we'll kick this over to our litigation department, or if you're an individual, I'll kick this over to my litigation attorney who will be in contact with you.

00:47:05.44
Matt Patterson
Right. So you try to work through it. I mean, and and, you know, in my, I've never seen one of these actually go to court, right. As somebody who takes an image that, you know, you have no rights to what's your defense.

00:47:21.59
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:47:21.69
Aaron
Yeah, i was going to say it's probably pretty cut and dry if you have the paper trail.

00:47:26.57
Matt Patterson
Yeah, or or if you don't, right? What I'm saying is, you know, if youre if you're using an image where you have no idea where one of your employees got it from, right?

00:47:29.10
Aaron
Yeah.

00:47:37.42
Matt Patterson
You have no contract with anybody for that image.

00:47:37.88
Aaron
Right.

00:47:40.38
Matt Patterson
Like, you know, where did it come from? Well, I lifted it off of Google Images. Well, Google Images don't, Google doesn't own Google Images, right? All those images are owned by other people.

00:47:52.61
Matt Patterson
right? They're up there for, you know, Google can use them. um You know, it gets into the whole rights for social media, right? That when you post something on Facebook, they get to use it.

00:48:06.08
Matt Patterson
They can't sell it to anybody else, but they can use it, right? So Meta now can can use it, but they can't sell it to anybody. So It's up there, but you can't rip it and put it on your website and and use it because you you have no contract with that author.

00:48:19.41
Aaron
Yeah.

00:48:22.27
Matt Patterson
So like I said, I think that if someone were to come to me, and I've had people do this plenty of times, they come to me, hey, I got a cease and desist letter and they want $2,000. Pay it. Right? Right? pay it

00:48:33.93
Aaron
yeah

00:48:34.64
Seth Macey
Yeah, but that's great to hear.

00:48:35.14
Matt Patterson
right right

00:48:36.78
Seth Macey
That's great to hear if you're, that's great to hear you say that from the the side of the party that's in violation and you're your legal advice is pay it because they could sue you.

00:48:46.91
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:48:47.86
Aaron
That's the cheap option, right?

00:48:49.53
Seth Macey
That's the cheap option. They could sue you for a lot more.

00:48:50.61
Matt Patterson
Yeah. right

00:48:51.57
Seth Macey
So I guess listeners ask for a cease and desist and provide a settlement number that you feel is fair that will make you, to my concept, not be pissed off.

00:48:58.49
Matt Patterson
Right. Right. but Right. To your to your end of the continuum.

00:49:01.97
Seth Macey
You know?

00:49:02.06
Aaron
Yeah.

00:49:04.17
Matt Patterson
I mean, you know, you paying the settlement is just one step. Right. Because I mean, you what is the settlement? Right. No, you're going to never use it again. Right. Right. This is a one time settlement or or we can talk about licensing.

00:49:13.97
Seth Macey
or Or Matt.

00:49:17.83
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:49:18.05
Matt Patterson
But I'm just saying, right. You want to know what that settlement is from both directions. Right. So clients come to me I say, pay the two grand, but we want to release right from any future damages. And you agree to never use it again.

00:49:31.06
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:49:31.18
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:49:31.22
Seth Macey
Yeah, I guess what's the better route? Cease and desist, pay me damages, or hey, I see you really like this ah image that you've stolen. A little bit of sarcasm.

00:49:40.73
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yeah.

00:49:42.36
Seth Macey
um why don't you To be able to continue using it legally, why don't you license it for me from me for $5,000?

00:49:44.51
Matt Patterson
Right. Right.

00:49:49.32
Matt Patterson
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

00:49:52.90
Seth Macey
Is there you think is there one that you think is maybe more successful

00:49:57.36
Matt Patterson
So I think it depends on the publication and the use, right? So if you think that there's an ongoing thing, right, that where they might want something, you know, the The best ones I've ever seen are like imitation is the fondest form of flattery, right?

00:50:12.00
Matt Patterson
ah You know, thank you for, you know, appreciating my image, you know, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I want to be compensated for that and we can talk about licensing, right? so So, you know, something that you think could be valuable to somebody ongoing, for sure, try to offer a license both for past use and future use, right?

00:50:30.23
Seth Macey
Right. right

00:50:31.62
Aaron
Right.

00:50:34.63
Aaron
right

00:50:35.55
Matt Patterson
because you want to get compensated for that past use, even if they thought it was innocent, right? um You want to get compensated for that past use as well.

00:50:43.59
Seth Macey
Yeah, I mean, because the example I provided earlier in this episode where I reached out and said, hey, you're using you're using these in an incorrect way. um So what ended up happening is they were using these images that were just supposed to be for socials as advertisements on Instagram.

00:51:05.86
Seth Macey
years later. And so every time I, and I was getting the ads, I was getting the targeted ads. So every time, so so what had happened is I had taken a photo of this product, right?

00:51:18.17
Seth Macey
And then what they did is this particular product has a new version every year and new designs. They would Photoshop the new designs onto the the object.

00:51:23.89
Matt Patterson
Yep.

00:51:29.53
Seth Macey
I'm trying not to divulge what this is. Um,

00:51:32.67
Matt Patterson
Yep. Yep.

00:51:33.68
Seth Macey
But you understand, they were they were using the original photographs to create more work, right?

00:51:40.11
Matt Patterson
yep

00:51:40.11
Seth Macey
And then using those as advertisements. So every time I got an advertisement for a new design of this object, I would screenshot it and I would screenshot it. And then eventually what I did was, so I emailed...

00:51:49.25
Matt Patterson
yeah

00:51:52.77
Seth Macey
the the owner and I said, hey, and this was not the de this was not our agreement a few years ago. I see you're using these as advertisements, so they must be this image must be really generating you good business.

00:52:05.46
Seth Macey
like It's clearly valuable in this sense, right? They're using it as advertisements over and over and over again for different models.

00:52:11.20
Matt Patterson
right Right.

00:52:13.29
Seth Macey
um you know You can and either continue to use them for a licensing fee which was like, I can't remember the amount, let's say $5,000.

00:52:26.34
Seth Macey
Or you can cease and desist and pay penalties of like $2,500.

00:52:31.18
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:52:31.21
Seth Macey
These are arbitrary numbers.

00:52:32.82
Matt Patterson
Yeah. For past yke for past use Yep.

00:52:35.05
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:52:35.44
Seth Macey
I can't remember if the if the if the cease and desist was...

00:52:35.85
Matt Patterson
yep

00:52:40.05
Seth Macey
So more in penalties. i can't remember what was what costed more.

00:52:42.77
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:52:44.42
Seth Macey
Either way, i tried to I tried to get them to take the continue to use it and license it just because I thought that would leave everybody with a better taste in their mouth.

00:52:55.06
Matt Patterson
Yep.

00:52:56.13
Seth Macey
And the response was like, yeah, let's do that. So sorry. The person who had originally made the deal with me left the company. They had no idea.

00:53:02.40
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:53:03.69
Seth Macey
They thought they maybe took the pictures.

00:53:03.78
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:53:05.25
Seth Macey
like So a lot of these companies are just clueless. um

00:53:08.01
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:53:08.26
Aaron
Yeah.

00:53:08.46
Seth Macey
I guess thats that that story is is an example of how you can not go scorched earth like

00:53:08.52
Matt Patterson
right

00:53:14.96
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:53:15.49
Seth Macey
take it down, pay me 10 grand, you bastards.

00:53:18.41
Matt Patterson
Right. Right.

00:53:19.65
Seth Macey
Sometimes people, it's not always malicious.

00:53:20.07
Matt Patterson
right

00:53:21.69
Seth Macey
And sometimes you can maybe spin it in a way that says, I understand these are clearly, these are value valuable to you. I have the proof. Here's the screenshots of advertisements you're using.

00:53:29.94
Matt Patterson
right

00:53:30.24
Seth Macey
You can keep using them for x dollars, or you can get new photography done, run new ad campaigns, which is more of a hassle than just paying me the licensing

00:53:30.73
Matt Patterson
right

00:53:41.08
Matt Patterson
Right. Obviously they liked doing what they were doing because they kept repeating what they were doing. Right.

00:53:46.19
Seth Macey
Right.

00:53:46.54
Matt Patterson
But so, yeah, you know, and, and there is another, we we really didn't get into this, but it's, it's called another, in that situation, you can avail yourself of what called is called the DCMA, the digital it' so DMCA, digital millennium copyright act, which means that if someone were to take your digital image and, and,

00:53:47.04
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:54:06.64
Seth Macey
huh.

00:54:11.47
Matt Patterson
change it, take off your watermark, take off your signature, lift the product up, put in a new one. They've just violated the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, right?

00:54:23.20
Aaron
Right.

00:54:23.41
Matt Patterson
And so there's statutory damages there as well, right? So so like it's it's more than just a derivative work, right?

00:54:26.70
Seth Macey
Right.

00:54:30.53
Matt Patterson
It's more than just a copyright um infringement, right?

00:54:35.26
Seth Macey
Yeah, I was saying you can't use the same image and background and everything and just plop a new design on the object every time.

00:54:35.44
Matt Patterson
But,

00:54:40.78
Matt Patterson
right, right.

00:54:42.26
Seth Macey
Like, that's crazy.

00:54:42.74
Aaron
right

00:54:42.82
Matt Patterson
Right, right, right, right, right.

00:54:43.98
Seth Macey
That's crazy town.

00:54:45.33
Matt Patterson
Right, right,

00:54:46.63
Seth Macey
But you're you'll people i think people have this... ah this fantasy that because companies are big and successful, they're put together and they understand everything and they know what they're doing.

00:54:59.26
Seth Macey
A lot of the time it's ah it's a firestorm. you people just

00:55:02.38
Matt Patterson
right, right.

00:55:03.24
Seth Macey
People just don't know.

00:55:05.13
Matt Patterson
right

00:55:05.39
Seth Macey
um And it's also a chance for you, like that person at that company, that owner will never make that mistake again. right um and it didn't cost them a ton.

00:55:12.17
Matt Patterson
Right. Right. Right. Yep.

00:55:16.20
Seth Macey
I have another question for you in this sense. I think a lot of people will find...

00:55:18.29
Matt Patterson
yep

00:55:19.64
Seth Macey
i used to do this. I used to find inspiration on Instagram. and to I would find a picture I liked on Instagram and I would try to to, in an effort to improve my skills, I would try to copy it exactly how they did. And in that process, I would learn a lot of things.

00:55:37.55
Matt Patterson
yeahp

00:55:37.98
Seth Macey
If I take... The exact images, obviously, it'll be a little bit different. The lighting will be different. Maybe the position of something will be different. If I try to mimic a photo and then post it, am I violating a copyright of someone else with that derivative work if it's pretty much the exact same?

00:55:57.58
Matt Patterson
No, no. So if you took a photo of that photograph, there's not much in that. Right. And so that would be a violation, right? It would be an infringement of that the original copyright.

00:56:09.14
Matt Patterson
But if you were to stage, say it's a product, right? On a turntable, whatever it is. And you're like, wow, I love that blue lighting or whatever, you know, and I'm going to set it up and, and you try to make the same image and you come up with something yourself

00:56:22.16
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:56:24.80
Matt Patterson
that's that, you know, is pretty darn close to that image. It's still your image, right?

00:56:29.52
Seth Macey
Really?

00:56:29.85
Aaron
Yeah.

00:56:29.84
Seth Macey
So in other words, you can't copyright ideas.

00:56:33.14
Matt Patterson
You cannot copyright ideas, right?

00:56:35.66
Seth Macey
So it's different just in it's different just in the sense that there's some minute difference.

00:56:35.84
Aaron
And like common use.

00:56:35.91
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:56:39.87
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:56:41.76
Seth Macey
See, that's surprising to me then because then an edit is you know a derivative but protected from the original work.

00:56:41.86
Matt Patterson
Yes.

00:56:49.17
Seth Macey
It's strange. This is a strange world you work in.

00:56:51.45
Matt Patterson
It is, it is.

00:56:52.41
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:52.82
Matt Patterson
But one of the things to keep in mind would be, wow, I love what that restaurant did with with its marketing. Look at that shot, that shot, that shot. So they did the outside, the inside, the you know color scheme, blah, blah, blah. and you And you recreate all that, right?

00:57:10.80
Matt Patterson
And put it on your client's website, right?

00:57:11.40
Seth Macey
Ah.

00:57:14.00
Matt Patterson
That could be it gets into trademark issues, right? Where now you're you're copying a trade dress, right?

00:57:21.52
Aaron
I think.

00:57:21.60
Matt Patterson
The trade dress for that restaurant, right? Everybody sees those imaging and goes, wow, that's Chili's or whatever it is, right? And you, but but if you copy that, that, that,

00:57:29.65
Seth Macey
ah

00:57:33.23
Matt Patterson
layout and, you you know, the the color schemes and all that kind of stuff, right, and the images to make your website look exactly like that one, you could get in trouble for for trade dress appropriation, right?

00:57:44.87
Seth Macey
Because, not because you've copied the images, but because it it's so similar to the trademark that people could potentially confuse it with the trademarked brand or business.

00:57:45.67
Matt Patterson
Misappropriation.

00:57:53.47
Matt Patterson
It's the compilation, right? It's the compilation of those images to conjure ah marketing a campaign issue, right?

00:57:55.35
Seth Macey
Yes.

00:58:01.38
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:58:01.70
Matt Patterson
that It's the compilation that you've, even though you've took the pictures yourself, you still own those pictures, but the way you assemble them may be a trade dress misappropriation issue.

00:58:10.83
Seth Macey
Right. Whereas like in my example, let's say you were shooting a backpack and you were laying it on the floor and you saw a picture of a backpack on the floor with all these objects.

00:58:11.41
Aaron
yeah

00:58:18.79
Seth Macey
And then I went and copied the exact same objects and laid them out the exact same way and took that image. I'm not violating a copyright.

00:58:27.36
Matt Patterson
You're not blindly in copyright. Yeah.

00:58:29.01
Seth Macey
Right.

00:58:29.81
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:58:29.85
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:58:30.74
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yep.

00:58:31.95
Aaron
Look at it.

00:58:31.99
Matt Patterson
It's your image.

00:58:32.63
Aaron
It's like a there's only so many chords in a song, right?

00:58:32.78
Matt Patterson
You're the author.

00:58:36.10
Aaron
I could just, I could completely copy a Beatles song progression, make my own lyrics, make my own vibe to it. It's the same exact chords, but it's going to be my own song. Can't copyright the G chord.

00:58:46.01
Seth Macey
But see, i guess in my i guess in my example, it would be like singing the Beatles song, but your voice is different, which in that world would be a violation.

00:58:57.84
Matt Patterson
Well, with songs, it depends on what's, so the chords are copyrighted, right? So the chords, as long as they rose to the level of creativity at the time that they were done, right? And they were recorded, they they own the copyright in those chords, right? I mean, that's typical of, you know, even portions of songs today get into this whole copyright infringement issue, right? If you copy the the chords of a song, right? So you can't just take somebody's song, change the words, right?

00:59:28.01
Aaron
No, we but that's melody too. So the melody, so there's ah there's just like a number of factors that have to be eerily similar, i would i think.

00:59:30.26
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:59:34.46
Matt Patterson
Right. Yes.

00:59:36.46
Aaron
But there's only, I mean, there's only 12 notes on the scale. So there's many songs that have the same exact chord structure, ah but with a different melody, different lyrics.

00:59:39.94
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:59:43.34
Matt Patterson
Right. Yeah.

00:59:46.25
Aaron
Reggae versus rock, just completely different feels.

00:59:46.33
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

00:59:50.13
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:59:50.25
Aaron
um

00:59:51.14
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:59:51.32
Aaron
Just like I imagine Seth and I have many pictures of bears, but they're different, but the same.

00:59:52.66
Matt Patterson
Right.

00:59:56.33
Matt Patterson
They're different. Yeah.

00:59:57.21
Seth Macey
I'm actually...

00:59:57.37
Matt Patterson
Even though they're the same bears. Right. And you know, the same thing.

00:59:59.56
Aaron
Seth and I the other day, sorry, I mean, I wonder how many times this is false brought up where that's my image.

00:59:59.74
Seth Macey
I'm...

01:00:01.08
Matt Patterson
Sorry.

01:00:07.83
Aaron
No, it's not. ah Seth and I were exchanging photos of a photo we took of whales and we literally tricked ourselves twice by sending back and forth

01:00:08.72
Matt Patterson
Right.

01:00:17.28
Aaron
my photo versus his photo.

01:00:17.79
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:00:18.52
Aaron
i was like, is that like, we edited the same way. And we, we came to the conclusion of the lighting and the, whatever just kind of put us into a lane of how to edit it with the colors and the light, but they looked and we don't really always edit the same or I shouldn't say always, we have different styles.

01:00:23.66
Matt Patterson
yeah

01:00:31.93
Seth Macey
Never really.

01:00:32.65
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Yeah.

01:00:34.62
Aaron
ah But this photo back to back, we're ah sitting there confused.

01:00:36.58
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:00:39.61
Aaron
Like I thought he re sent my photo back to me, just zoomed out or zoomed in.

01:00:43.25
Seth Macey
He sent his photo and I was like, is that mine?

01:00:43.45
Aaron
I was like, no,

01:00:43.53
Matt Patterson
That's funny.

01:00:46.04
Seth Macey
And then I sent mine and he's like, why did you send me my photo? And I was like, what the hell?

01:00:49.50
Matt Patterson
Yeah. Right. No, I was going to say,

01:00:51.80
Seth Macey
We're like, we never do that. We don't have the same style.

01:00:53.88
Aaron
Yeah.

01:00:54.74
Seth Macey
No, we don't.

01:00:55.12
Aaron
So um I'm curious in those, are there ever, are there false, false claims of like, that's my image?

01:00:56.12
Seth Macey
Mine's a lot better. um

01:00:57.71
Matt Patterson
yeah right no that was' gonna say

01:01:01.68
Aaron
And then it's like, no, it's not close, but not.

01:01:02.20
Matt Patterson
right Yeah. Well, you have the metadata too, right? So, right.

01:01:06.35
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

01:01:07.51
Matt Patterson
That's the, that's the nice thing, you know, so that, and that's why I was saying earlier, you know, you want to keep as much metadata as you can, as you go through the edits, right?

01:01:16.68
Seth Macey
Next time I'm going to steal, I'm going to take Aaron's camera and just blast off a ton of photos and then he won't know which ones he took and which ones I did.

01:01:17.17
Matt Patterson
Maybe not.

01:01:23.76
Seth Macey
And then it'll be a copyright disaster for him.

01:01:26.33
Matt Patterson
Right.

01:01:26.56
Aaron
Smart.

01:01:27.10
Matt Patterson
Right.

01:01:27.43
Aaron
Smart. Good.

01:01:29.57
Seth Macey
for Right?

01:01:29.90
Aaron
Now I know.

01:01:30.42
Matt Patterson
It's not the owner of the camera. Right. So.

01:01:32.98
Aaron
My camera has the fingerprint recognition on it now.

01:01:33.09
Seth Macey
Yeah.

01:01:35.63
Aaron
So that's a good invention.

01:01:36.76
Seth Macey
It won't go.

01:01:36.87
Matt Patterson
There's an idea.

01:01:38.05
Aaron
That's a good invention.

01:01:39.41
Matt Patterson
There you go Yeah.

01:01:40.52
Aaron
Yeah. Are you a patent lawyer?

01:01:41.84
Matt Patterson
Yeah. and And, you know, there have been issues with, you know, if what what if you set the camera up, you know, to take time-lapse images, right?

01:01:51.29
Aaron
Hmm.

01:01:52.08
Matt Patterson
Who's the author? Well, you picked, you know, you as the photographer picked the interval, you set up the focus, you so you're still the author of that, right?

01:01:58.88
Aaron
Do

01:02:02.28
Matt Patterson
If you take your phone and you trigger it, right, remotely, you're still you're still the author of that.

01:02:08.16
Seth Macey
Here's what going do when I see people setting up a tripod to take like a family photo at a tourist attraction or something. I'm going to run up and I'm just going to touch the camera around and be like, copyrighted.

01:02:17.73
Aaron
you want that photo?

01:02:18.83
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:02:19.13
Seth Macey
You want the photo?

01:02:20.71
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:02:20.87
Aaron
You better not use it.

01:02:21.60
Matt Patterson
Right.

01:02:22.28
Aaron
I'm watching you.

01:02:23.69
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:02:23.78
Aaron
I'm watching you.

01:02:23.80
Seth Macey
And it'snna be like it's going to be a last to leave contest. I'm just going to keep my hand finger on their camera so they can't take another one.

01:02:30.29
Matt Patterson
right

01:02:30.32
Aaron
Yeah.

01:02:30.68
Matt Patterson
yeah Yeah. I'm not sure that business model will work out for you.

01:02:33.70
Seth Macey
Oh, man.

01:02:33.88
Matt Patterson
Right.

01:02:34.22
Seth Macey
i was gonna

01:02:34.28
Matt Patterson
Right. Right.

01:02:35.38
Seth Macey
i was going to quit everything to do that.

01:02:37.34
Matt Patterson
yeah

01:02:37.69
Aaron
yeah

01:02:38.57
Seth Macey
Just stand at the Grand Canyon. And every time somebody sets up a camera on a tripod, I just go and put my finger on it.

01:02:40.99
Matt Patterson
right

01:02:44.75
Seth Macey
Mine.

01:02:45.86
Matt Patterson
right and

01:02:48.26
Aaron
Perfect.

01:02:50.10
Seth Macey
Well, Matt, thank you for today, man.

01:02:51.23
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:02:51.62
Seth Macey
That was very helpful.

01:02:52.03
Aaron
Yeah.

01:02:52.21
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:02:53.40
Seth Macey
Thanks for taking us to school. I know we could go a lot longer, but hour an hour of copyright law is great, I think.

01:02:59.18
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:02:59.72
Aaron
Yeah, that's a class.

01:02:59.82
Matt Patterson
and An hour wide and an inch deep, right? Holy cow. I mean, there's so much here, right?

01:03:02.79
Aaron
Yeah.

01:03:03.14
Seth Macey
Yes.

01:03:04.38
Matt Patterson
So, but yeah.

01:03:05.64
Seth Macey
Yeah, but I hope people left kind of with a little bit more confidence about their rights and how they can protect themselves and what to do.

01:03:05.71
Aaron
Yeah.

01:03:10.08
Matt Patterson
Yeah.

01:03:11.80
Seth Macey
when I'm not saying if, I'm saying when their photo gets stolen or used incorrectly or whether maliciously or by accident. You have things you can do, clearly.

01:03:21.60
Matt Patterson
Right.

01:03:22.08
Seth Macey
um And if you're ever in that scenario, revisit this episode.

01:03:25.88
Aaron
Yeah.

01:03:26.14
Matt Patterson
Right.

01:03:26.23
Seth Macey
You know, revisit this one.

01:03:26.37
Aaron
And Matt's a photographer too, by the way. So Matt, where can people find your work? like Take a look.

01:03:31.75
Matt Patterson
Well, so as, as an IP attorney,

01:03:35.30
Aaron
ah No, I meant as a photographer, but you could do both.

01:03:35.70
Matt Patterson
um oh, as a photographer. Yeah.

01:03:39.50
Seth Macey
Well, we'll put links to your IP attorney in case people need a patent lawyer or a trademark lawyer.

01:03:39.57
Matt Patterson
So yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yep.

01:03:44.77
Seth Macey
We'll put that in the episode description.

01:03:45.43
Matt Patterson
Yep. Yeah.

01:03:46.83
Seth Macey
And, um you know, of course, we'll put your photography website. But tell us about your photography.

01:03:50.48
Aaron
Yeah.

01:03:51.75
Matt Patterson
Yep. So my photography is Wild Shot. So my website is wild-shot.com. And um I am up at Birch Hill Tavern, our favorite haunt in town.

01:04:08.33
Matt Patterson
I have a number of pictures up there and I'm showing at the Glastonbury Art Festival in September, weekend after Labor Day.

01:04:14.64
Aaron
Awesome.

01:04:14.96
Seth Macey
And you're at the Bradley airport, sir.

01:04:15.16
Matt Patterson
So you can see my work there.

01:04:17.62
Aaron
Yeah.

01:04:17.63
Matt Patterson
And I'm at the Bradley Airport, Bradley International Airport. Yep. I have six images up there, big images.

01:04:21.66
Aaron
Very cool.

01:04:24.32
Seth Macey
Matt used white wall folks.

01:04:24.58
Matt Patterson
Yep.

01:04:24.77
Aaron
Yeah.

01:04:26.83
Seth Macey
That's our shameless plug.

01:04:27.12
Aaron
Yeah.

01:04:27.71
Seth Macey
Our sponsor of the episode.

01:04:29.70
Matt Patterson
I love White Wall. I love White Wall.

01:04:31.56
Seth Macey
It's good stuff.

01:04:32.91
Matt Patterson
it's It's excellent quality, comes shipped very well, comes shipped very fast. i you know

01:04:38.93
Seth Macey
Yeah. Yeah.

01:04:39.59
Matt Patterson
I didn't know it was coming from Germany. I get a UPS notification, right? And I'm like, what the heck did I order from Germany six days ago?

01:04:49.06
Aaron
Yeah.

01:04:49.13
Seth Macey
Did

01:04:50.18
Matt Patterson
Boom, it's on my doorstep, right?

01:04:50.41
Aaron
like

01:04:52.43
Matt Patterson
Beautiful stuff.

01:04:52.46
Seth Macey
you go metal?

01:04:52.66
Aaron
Yep.

01:04:54.54
Matt Patterson
No, it was fiberboard. So Bradley Airport dictated fiberboard.

01:04:56.95
Seth Macey
Cool.

01:04:59.77
Matt Patterson
So that's what I did.

01:05:00.62
Seth Macey
How many prints did you put up?

01:05:01.31
Matt Patterson
I think six.

01:05:03.11
Aaron
Six, right? Yeah.

01:05:04.14
Seth Macey
Six.

01:05:04.44
Matt Patterson
And I think that have like 40 by 30, right?

01:05:04.86
Seth Macey
Incredible.

01:05:07.67
Matt Patterson
The images are 40 by 30.

01:05:08.54
Aaron
Wow.

01:05:09.19
Matt Patterson
So yeah, yeah.

01:05:09.77
Aaron
Very cool.

01:05:11.84
Matt Patterson
Yep.

01:05:12.07
Seth Macey
Good stuff. Well, Matt, it's been

01:05:13.12
Matt Patterson
Gate 24. so take a selfie, post it on social media.

01:05:18.80
Seth Macey
Yes, if you're in um Hartford, Connecticut, or you fly into there, go to gate 24 and see Matt's artwork.

01:05:19.04
Aaron
Check it out.

01:05:21.41
Matt Patterson
If you're in Connecticut, right? Yeah. Right.

01:05:27.29
Aaron
Yeah.

01:05:27.75
Matt Patterson
Right. Right. So, okay.

01:05:30.01
Seth Macey
Someone's listening. They just got off the plane. They're like, no way.

01:05:33.76
Matt Patterson
Right, right.

01:05:33.87
Aaron
It's right there. Yeah.

01:05:38.31
Matt Patterson
There's going a big flock of people there. Yeah, I can see it now.

01:05:41.25
Aaron
Bye, guys.

01:05:41.20
Seth Macey
Right? All right. Until next time.

01:05:43.48
Matt Patterson
Good. Yeah. All right.

01:05:44.54
Aaron
i guys

01:05:45.44
Matt Patterson
Thanks, guys.