Copyright (c) and Hoot Creek Photography

Copyright is most often infringed simply because it is misunderstood. Therefore, I have added this page to my site to help understand why we have copyrights and how we utilize them.  I thank you for taking the time to review our copyright policy and invite you to contact me at anytime with any questions that you might have.

This site was designed and created by Hoot Creek Photography.

All Images are (c)Kent Soule - Hoot Creek Photography. It is illegal to scan, copy, or reproduce in any way a professionally copyrighted image. All reasonable requests will be considered, please discuss your needs with us.

WARNING : We vigorously protect our copyrights; all Hoot Creek images are REGISTERED with the US Copyright Office. In the event that an infringement is discovered, the infringer will be notified and invoiced the industry-standard of TRIPLE FEE for unauthorized usage and/or prosecuted for Copyright Infringement in United States Federal Court where you may be subject to paying Statutory Damages in the amount of $150,000 as well as court costs and attorney's fees.

Possession of a photo or electronic image does NOT constitute the right to scan, copy; reproduce in any way without expressed written consent of Kent Soule or Hoot Creek Photography. . We sell stock photos for a variety of uses as well as limited license use on most of our images. Our prices and licensing of our images varies based upon each individual situation. If you are interested in purchasing an image license please contact us.

Some quick tips about copyright :

  • Photographs are copyrighted the moment they are taken, and no copyright notice is required.
  • Copyright is still violated whether money is charged or not, only damages awarded in the event of a lawsuit are affected by that.
  • Postings to the net are not granted to the public domain, and don't grant any permission to do further copying.
  • The "fair use" exemption to U.S. copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author, anything outside of those areas is considered a violation.
  • Copyright is not lost because you don't defend it; that's a concept from trademark law.
  • Work derived from a copyrighted work is a copyright violation. A derivative is defined as any form of changing an original copyright piece, i.e. lighten/darken, crop, rotate, filter, and combine with other images, etc. still a violation.
  • Copyright law is mostly civil law where the special rights of criminal defendants you hear so much about don't apply. However, recently in the USA commercial copyright violation involving more than 10 copies and value over $2500 was made a felony.
  • Don't rationalize that you are helping the copyright holder by advertising their work for FREE; it's not hard to ask permission.

 

Kent Soule
Hoot Creek Photography