WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others use of the copyrighted work.

WHAT WORKS ARE PROTECTED?
Copyright protects "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation need not be directly perceptible so long as it may be communicated with the aid of a machine or device. Copyrightable works include the following categories:
* (1) literary works;
* (2) musical works, including any accompanying words
* (3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music
* (4) pantomimes and choreographic works
* (5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
* (6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works
* (7) sound recordings
* (8) architectural works

THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHICS® WEBSITE IS COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

We have various methods at our disposal for finding copyright violations and successfully prosecuting violators of our copyrighted works:

COPYSCAPE.COM - Online plagiarism protection. Useful to help find copies of your content on the internet.

Google Image Search

PicSearch™

DNSstuff - Comprehensive resource for tracing.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Link provided for reference.

We can use a Whois service to find out the website owner's name and telephone number and contact them directly. Enter the domain name in the search box and the contact information should appear towards the bottom of the page.

Contact the web hosting company used by the site and inform them of their customer's abuse. This information is also available through other Whois search resources such as ARIN.

Send a formal 'Cease and Desist' letter notifying the offending party that they must remove the stolen content from their site.

File a notice of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) infringement with search engines to have the offending site removed from their search results.

For proof of infringement, we use the Internet Archive to show that the content appeared on our site at an earlier date than it appeared on the offending site. For some materials, we have registered copyright protection and can present affidavits in some cases from the people who we photographed once the case is in court.