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Today, my friend Chris Garner, who owns TPS Photography in Morganton, NC, found one of his images posted on social media — stolen, screenshotted, run through an AI watermark remover, and reposted looking dark, blurry, and cheap. His online shop has barriers built in specifically to prevent this. Someone got around them anyway.
Chris didn’t stay quiet. He posted publicly:
“This is not only theft, but it’s portraying our product as trash… If they used AI, someone overseas now has your minor’s likeness in their database and can use it for who knows what.”
He followed that post with an eleven-minute video of himself walking, trying to cool down. Not because he was angry for the sake of being angry — because he saw, clearly, what this represents: an existential threat to small photography businesses and to the profession as a whole.
Chris is right. And I’ve lived a version of this myself.
My Own Experience
Last month, I went through a copyright dispute after a business used one of my photographs without permission or payment. I hired Alicia Wagner Calzada, NPPA’s Deputy General Counsel — who, alongside General Counsel Mickey Osterreicher, represents NPPA members on exactly this kind of issue — to represent me. I’m not going to walk through the details of who or what — that’s not the point of this post. What matters is the pattern, because if you’ve been doing this work for any length of time, you will run into it too.
Here’s what stood out to me watching Alicia work:
The value of a photo is front-loaded. When an image is used without permission — especially on social media — most of the benefit happens immediately. Engagement, reach, and impressions all peak in the days right after posting. A business can pull the photo down a day later and still have banked nearly all the value it took from you. “I removed it” is not the same as “no harm was done.”
The Business Already Received the Value
The important thing to understand is that removing the photograph later doesn’t erase the value the business already received.
If a business posts a photograph at noon and thousands of people see it, share it, comment on it, or interact with the business because of it, that exposure has already happened. The photograph did its job.
Taking the photograph down two weeks later doesn’t rewind the clock.
That’s especially important with social media because the value of a timely photograph is often front-loaded. A photograph from an event posted while the event is happening can help a business become part of the conversation. The same photograph posted weeks later may still be useful, but its immediate promotional value has largely passed.
That’s one reason photographers should stop thinking of their work as simply “a picture.” We are creating a business asset that can deliver measurable value almost immediately.
Silence isn’t a strategy — but neither is rolling over. Alicia’s approach throughout was calm, direct, and unemotional: state the facts, establish that a benefit was received, and invite a fair offer. No threats, no drama. Just a clear paper trail showing that unauthorized use happened and has value, followed by a straightforward ask: what are you offering to make this right?
That measured, professional approach is exactly why it’s worth having someone like Alicia in your corner instead of handling it yourself over email, tired and frustrated at midnight.
The NPPA Benefit Most Members Forget About
If you’re a member of the National Press Photographers Association, you already have access to something incredibly valuable: legal guidance. NPPA members can consult with media attorneys as part of their membership before ever paying a retainer. You can talk through what happened, find out if you have a real case, and then decide whether to formally hire counsel — with someone who already understands photography licensing and copyright law, not a general practice attorney learning it on the fly.
If you’re not using this benefit, you’re leaving value on the table that you’re already paying for.
Why This Matters for All of Us, Not Just You
Every time a photographer lets an infringement slide because pursuing it feels like too much hassle, it teaches the next business, the next content thief, that stealing images carries no real risk. If more photographers registered their work and followed through when it was infringed, the calculation would change. Enforcement isn’t just about recovering money for one photo — it’s about raising the cost of theft industry-wide. This is a collective action problem, and right now too many of us default to doing nothing.
The Education Part: How to Actually Protect Yourself
Here’s the good news — this is far more accessible than most photographers assume.
1. Register your copyrights (and do it early)
Copyright exists the moment you create an image, but your legal leverage depends heavily on registration. If your work is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before an infringement occurs — or within 90 days of first publication — you become eligible for statutory damages and recovery of attorney’s fees. Without timely registration, you’re generally limited to proving actual financial harm, which is far harder and far less of a deterrent to the person who stole your work.
For working photographers, the most practical tool is Group Registration of Published Photographs (GRPPH), filed through the Copyright Office’s electronic system (eCO) at copyright.gov. It lets you register up to 750 photographs published within the same calendar year in a single application, for one filing fee—currently $55. I personally register everything I’ve shot for publication in a rolling 90-day window, in one group filing, so nothing falls outside that protected registration period. It takes an afternoon, not a week.
One more reason to act now: the Copyright Office has finalized a fee increase that raises this group registration fee from $55 to $85, expected to take effect in mid-November 2026. If you’ve got a backlog of unregistered images, this is a good time to catch up before the price goes up roughly 55%.
2. Know about the Copyright Claims Board — small claims for copyright
Most infringement cases aren’t worth a federal lawsuit. That’s exactly why Congress created the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) through the CASE Act. It’s a small-claims-style tribunal specifically for copyright disputes, with damages capped at $30,000. You can file it yourself, without an attorney, through the CCB’s online portal. It’s designed to be accessible to independent creators — no federal court experience required.
The cost is minimal: a $40 filing fee when you submit your claim, and a $60 second fee if the other side doesn’t opt out within 60 days — about $100 total to pursue a claim. If your damages are $5,000 or less, you can request the CCB’s streamlined “Smaller Claims” track, decided by a single Copyright Claims Officer.
Registration still matters here too: to seek statutory damages through the CCB, your work needs to be registered (or have a registration application filed) before your claim is finalized. That’s one more reason registering early, as a habit, pays off.
3. This really isn’t that hard
- Set a recurring habit: every 90 days, submit a group registration of everything you’ve published.
- Keep your files organized by publication date so you can pull together a group filing quickly.
- If you’re an NPPA member, use your legal consultation benefit the moment you spot unauthorized use — before you respond to anyone yourself.
- If the amount involved is modest, look at the Copyright Claims Board before assuming you need to hire a lawyer for federal court.
- If it’s more complex or the infringer won’t engage, bring in an attorney who does this for a living.
None of this requires a law degree. It requires a system, and the willingness actually to use it.
Thank You, Alicia
I want to publicly thank Alicia Wagner Calzada for the work she did on my case and for the broader work she does for photographers navigating exactly this kind of situation. If you’re dealing with a copyright infringement and want experienced counsel who understands the photography and media world specifically, you can find her at calzadalegal.com.
Chris Garner shouldn’t have had to spend eleven minutes walking around trying to calm down after finding his work stolen and degraded. But he — and the rest of us — have more tools available now than photographers have ever had before. Register your work. Know your options. And when someone violates your copyright, don’t just let it go. The next photographer is counting on you not to.
📌 Pro Tip: If You Use Photo Mechanic, This Part Gets Even Easier
If you’re already culling and captioning in Photo Mechanic, you can skip most of the manual data entry for your group registration. Here’s the shortcut:
- Select the images you’re registering.
- Go to File ▶ Export, and choose Text Exporter.
- In the header field, type:
Title{tab}Filename - In the body field, type:
{object}{tab}{filename} - Export the file and save it with a .tsv extension.
- Open it in Excel (or any spreadsheet program) — you’ll have a clean, two-column list of titles and filenames ready to copy straight into the Copyright Office’s group registration form.
One catch: the “Title” here pulls from whatever you’ve written in the caption/description field in Photo Mechanic, so this only works well if you’re already captioning your images as you edit — one more reason to build that into your workflow, not just your registration routine.
Camera Bits (the makers of Photo Mechanic) has a short video walking through this exact process, and the Copyright Office has its own registration portal at copyright.gov/registration.