Rival company using my pictures in brochures

[sharrisnc]

North Carolina - Several questions for anyone who wishes to respond.
I own a decorative concrete company and take pictures of my projects to use in my brochures, flyers, advertising and portfolio. A supplier of mine was interested in seeing what my work looked like, I offered to send a couple of pictures. Several months later, I receive a packet of their new brochures and three of my pictures were in them. Let it be known, that there was no mention of a brochure, or a request or authorization to use said pictures in their literature. The company sales their own line of products and will private label for other companies. I was purchasing private labeled products with my company name on them. Due to retail costs of their brand vs. wholesale costs of private label, I chose to private label. The pictures that were sent were projects using a different line of products not purchased through them, however, they used the pictures in their national marketing and sales brochures of their own product lines which are used by distributors and dealers throughout the U.S. The company resides in another state.

1. Is a picture that I take of work I performed and use in my sales literature copyrighted, or does every picture need to be registered as copyrighted material?

2. Can another company use my pictures without consent, especially if it isnt a project which uses their products?

3. What can be done to confront this, if any? What are the legal remedies?
What are the fines associated? How can I get discovery on the amount of literature reproduced? Would a suit be filed in the state of the company or in my state?

 

[divgradcurl]

1. Yes, a picture you take is automatically copyrighted.

2. No. And the subject matter doesn't matter.

3. Your legal remedies could include an injunction (which would stop him from using you picture, or distributing brochures with your picture in them), impounding and disposition of infringing articles (the court could have the brochures taken and destroyed) and actual damages, that is, the actual amount of financial damage you suffered because of the infringement.

There will not be any statutory damages in this case, because a copyright has to be registered with the copyright office in order for statutory damages to apply.

Any of these things will require a lawyer. You can't make any discovery requests until a lawsuit is filed. Copyright law is federal law, so any lawsuit would have to be filed in federal court. Your attorney will let you know where it needs to be filed (probably your state). However, unless you have actually suffered damages, you won't recover any money, so you will have to pay your lawyer up front and hope to collect attorneys fees if you are successful in winning your case.

Unless you have suffered provable damages as a result of this, you would probably be better served to have a lawyer (or do it yourself) send a letter to them telling them that they are infringing, and then asking them to either cease using your pictures or pay you a licensing fee for use of the pictures.

I am not a lawyer, and this is not even close to legal advice.