The May/June issue of Floral Management provides guidance on how to deter competitors from stealing your work.
It takes time to create an original design, photograph it, write compelling copy — and then post it online. Finding your work on another florist’s website can be infuriating. The May/June issue of Floral Management provides guidance on how to deter competitors from stealing your work.
In the U.S., copyright protections extend to photographs, says David Wolfsohn, an intellectual property trial attorney at Duane Morris LLP in Philadelphia. “If you take a picture that has some originality and aesthetic to it, you are now the author, and you own it,” he explains.
Wolfsohn recommends registering images with the U.S. Copyright Office because it enables the owner to establish damages by assigning a minimum value to the stolen work. It also allows the owner to seek attorney fees. “The goal is to make the infringer think it is in their best interest to take the images down,” he says.
Overwhelmed at the thought of registering every single photo? Fortunately, the government has established fees for a group of work, meaning you could upload your portfolio in batches as you update seasonally.
For more advice, including how one florist in Massachusetts successfully got her images removed from another shop’s website, check out “Is Your Digital Work Protected?” in the May/June issue of Floral Management.
Katie Vincent is the senior contributing editor for the Society of American Florists.
