Making Your Camera Pay Part 9

Now we plunge deep into the mysteries of copyrights. When a print is copyrighted it is unalterably the property of the person _first_ copyrighting it until he signs "Transference of Copyright." A copyrighted print may be published in a dozen publications if they will buy it, and it still remains the property of the one who first copyrighted it. Copyright laws were pa.s.sed for the benefit of those who "promote the progress of science and useful arts." This is done "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to use their respective writings and discoveries." Under this law, "author" includes makers of photographs, and "writings" includes photographs.

The process of copyrighting a photograph is not an involved one. A request should be addressed to the Register of Copyrights at Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., for a few copyright-blanks, form J1. (Form J1 is for photographs to be sold, J2 for photographs not to be sold.) One of these cards is then filled out, and two prints of the photographs sent with it to the Copyright Office, as well as the necessary fee. "The fee for the registration of copyrights ... in the case of photographs, when no certificate (of copyright) is demanded is fifty cents; for every certificate, fifty cents" additional. A certificate is not usually necessary, and is useful only in cases of disputed copyright owners.h.i.+p, etc. The fee should be sent only in the form of a money-order to the Register of Copyrights, and the photographs must bear the mark of copyright, which is "either the word 'Copyrighted' or the abbreviation 'Copr.' accompanied by the name of the copyright proprietor. In the case of photographs the notice may consist of the letter C inclosed in a circle _provided_ that on some accessible portion of such copies ...

the name of the person copyrighting shall appear." Upon the Copyright Office receiving the photographs, the sender is notified; and again, when copyright is granted, he is sent a small card notifying him, or the certificate is sent to him if he has ordered one. Then the print is considered copyrighted.

It is useless to copyright any except those prints of extraordinary value, the rights of which the photographer wishes to retain at all costs. The average quality prints are not likely to be stolen, and so the copyrighting of them is unnecessary. If the photograph is merely to be offered to two or more publications it is only necessary to mark each print as directed in the foregoing paragraphs.

Publis.h.i.+ng companies are business-inst.i.tutions which are of necessity conducted according to the highest ethics. To unwittingly sell to another magazine a print one magazine purchased as exclusive, would be likely to exile the photographer's work from those particular magazines. The photographer should remember that a print of his making is not his property once it is first copyrighted by someone else, _unless_ he has sold only certain rights of it. It is nothing less than theft, to make a photographic copy of a published photograph and to offer it as original and unpublished. The photographer should never try to sell what is not his own work. But since not many have the urge to do so, undue emphasis on that point would be offensive.

"The sum of the foregoing advice is that the author (photographer) should exercise common sense in disposing of rights," says J. Berg Esenwein, editor of the _Writer's Monthly_, in one of his books. "In most cases it would be better to allow the publisher to have 'All Rights' than to forego the chance of a sale; but nearly all magazine-editors are disposed to be reasonable and will agree to share any future profits that may arise from supplementary sales of a ma.n.u.script (photograph). The chief point is that author and publisher should clearly understand each other, without the author's losing his rights, yet, without hara.s.sing the publisher by making unnecessary stipulations regarding a trifling matter."

The law of copyright should be followed strictly when attempting to submit the same photograph to more than one publication or buyer. If the photographer keeps an eye on what rights he has sold when he cashes his cheque, and governs himself accordingly, he will sail along without trouble of any kind.

XIV

ILl.u.s.tRATED SPECIAL ARTICLES

It would require a surveyor of extraordinary skill to mark the boundary between the lands of _Photographs-With-Explanatory-Data_ and _Articles-Ill.u.s.trated-With-Photographs_. Since the dividing line is so vague it is not difficult to pa.s.s from the one to the other.

The jump from the making of photographs to the writing of non-fiction is not a difficult one to make. In his rambles after salable photographs the press-photographer may unearth a subject to which a single photograph does not do justice. Then the making of more photographs and the writing of an article about them is the logical and the progressive and the more remunerative thing to do.

Indeed, subjects which would not sell otherwise may be made very useful to an editor by the writing of an enticing article around them. At once, there is a means of broadening one's market and of disposing of photographs, by themselves, unsalable. An ill.u.s.trated article naturally calls forth a fatter cheque than would the text or the photographs alone. There is as much a demand for ill.u.s.trated articles as there is for photographs; so that the photographer with the ability to tell facts simply and clearly has two avenues of revenue.

Many ill.u.s.trated articles sold to magazines are just groups of photographs with interesting texts written about them. A search through a few magazines reveals a broad variety.

From _Popular Mechanics_:

New Mountain-Road Now Open to Traffic.

New Orleans Public Elevator.

Artistic Roof-Garden Features City-Factory.

Steamer Repaired in Eighteen Days.

Where the Earth Collapsed.

Flying Anglers Troll for Deep-Sea Fish.

A Four-Track Concrete Railroad-Bridge.

Waterfalls Near Big City Just Discovered.

Concrete Smokestack Difficult to Demolish.

Vast Stores of Mineral Paint-Pigments in Salton Sea.

From _Ill.u.s.trated World_:

What the Circus Does in Winter.

Snow on the Overland Trail.

City over Coal-Mines Slowly Sinking.

Running the Farm by Windmill.

Truck Equipped for Sealer of Weights and Measures.

Marvelous Development in the Hemp-Industry.

Public Camp-Conveniences.

Mud-Splas.h.i.+ng Guards for Autos.

Work for Waterfalls Everywhere.

Building the Road to Fit the Car.

Heading Off Mountain-Floods.

Lawn-Pools and Fountains in Concrete.

From _Photo-Era Magazine_:

Children in the Snow.

The Quartz-Meniscus Lens.

Introduction of Figures in Landscape-Work.

Photographic Greeting Cards.

Balance by Shadows in Pictorial Composition.

Mounting and Framing Photographs.

The Photographer and a Goat-Ranch.

In Nature's Studio.

From _Science and Invention_:

Science Measures the Athlete.

World's Largest Clock.

Making Microphotographs.

How Cartoon Movies are Made.

A Miniature "Sky."

Curing Soldiers' Ills with Electricity.

Largest Electric Crane Lifts Complete Tug-Boat.

Wintertime Uses for the Electric Fan.

Monster Italian Searchlight.

These are articles written around several photographs--not merely ill.u.s.trated by them. Besides the cla.s.ses of magazines mentioned there are numerous others--almost any publication that uses ill.u.s.trations in fact--which are in the market for ill.u.s.trated articles. Such magazines cater to outers, hunters, sportsmen, business-men, physical culturists, travelers--almost every cla.s.s of reader.

Having produced and sold articles written around the ill.u.s.trations, the writer-photographer cannot other than form an idea, now and then, of an article a magazine should want which may be ill.u.s.trated; but to which the ill.u.s.trations are supplementary rather than basic. In such cases, the writer will have greater chance of acceptance if he, by means of his camera, makes several photographs to ill.u.s.trate the text.

Even if an article is acceptable without ill.u.s.trations, it will bring a bigger cheque nevertheless if it is ill.u.s.trated. If the lack of ill.u.s.trations makes the article unavailable, then the photographer has the means of making a cheque grow where none grew before. His camera stands him in good stead. There is no editor but prefers an ill.u.s.trated article to an unill.u.s.trated one--unless his magazine is pictureless from policy.

Then, from having his pictures printed without his name attached, the photographer blossoms into a writer whose work appears under such a head as "_'How Fruit is Raised on the Moon_,' by John Henry Jones, with Ill.u.s.trations by the Author."

Although the jump from the making of photographs to the writing of non-fiction is easy, you may slip at the first attempt. But hammer away and soon the nail will go in. "For know ye, there isn't a magazine-editor in the business who wouldn't buy an article from his worst enemy if he thought it was good stuff for his magazine."

The photographer must not only "smell out" news; but he must, by the sensitiveness of his "nose" tell just how much the news is capable of being worked up. He will find it comparatively easy to write ill.u.s.trated special-articles where before he sold just photographs. And such ability stands not far below that of the fictionists.

XV

THE HIGH ROAD