US Copyright Office Wants to Increase Cost to Register Photos by 55%; PetaPixel, May 5, 2026

 JARON SCHNEIDER, PetaPixel; US Copyright Office Wants to Increase Cost to Register Photos by 55%

"The US Copyright Office has proposed a substantial increase to the cost to register photos, citing rising costs and inflation. It argues the cost is still negligible, but critics say the Office is out of touch with reality.

In March, the Office issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) where it suggested substantial increases to its fees, including increases of more than 50% for group registration of photographs and approximately 268% for updates to news websites. 

“The Office has determined that fees should be raised an average of 43% to account for increases in the cost of providing services. This reflects both historic inflation since the last fee study and anticipated inflation over the next three years,” the NPRM states. “The Office estimates that revenues generated by these proposed fees would be roughly $51 million per year over the next five years (compared to the current schedule’s projected $41 million per year), and would achieve approximately 53% projected cost recovery during the first year of implementation.”"

Google Starts Scanning All Your Photos As New Update Goes Live; Forbes, April 20, 2026

 Zak Doffman, Forbes; Google Starts Scanning All Your Photos As New Update Goes Live

"Take a moment to think before you dive in. That’s the best advice for Google Photos users, as the company confirms its latest update can scan all your photos to “use actual images of you and your loved ones” in AI image generation. That means Gemini seeing who you know and what you do. You likely have tens or hundreds of thousands of photos. They’re all exposed if you update.

We’re talking Personal Intelligence, Google’s latest AI upgrade path which lets users opt-in to connecting Google apps to Gemini...

This is the latest iteration in the ongoing battle between convenience and privacy playing out on our phones and computers."

'It's about freedom of the press': photographer tackled by ICE throws camera to save it – video; The Guardian, January 26, 2026

 Lauren Hurrell , The Guardian; 'It's about freedom of the press': photographer tackled by ICE throws camera to save it – video

"Last week, the independent photographer John Abernathy was tackled to the ground by ICE agents during a protest in Minneapolis. He said he tossed his camera in the hope of saving his photographs because the images of the protests 'deserve to be seen'. The Department of Homeland Security told CNN Abernathy had been arrested for obstructing pedestrian and vehicle traffic on federal property."

Have You Seen Changes to Federal Buildings? Send Us Photos.; The New York Times, February 5, 2025

  Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz, The New York Times; Have You Seen Changes to Federal Buildings? Send Us Photos.

"We’re looking to document changes in the physical appearances of federal buildings during the transition to the Trump administration.

If you work in a federal building and have seen differences in your physical environment — new wall décor, artwork coming down or being put up, photos covered up or anything else — we’d like to see photographs of the new space. If you have photos of how it looked before, you are also encouraged to enclose those.

The form below will allow you to submit photos of federal buildings and provide information about where and when the photos were taken. You can also reach us securely at nytimes.com/tips.

We may publish any photograph you share in The New York Times. We will never publish your name without permission, but it would help to provide at least one method of contacting you in case we need to reach out about your submission."

Photographer Sues Church Over Copyright Infringement; Fstoppers, December 28, 2023

  Alex Cooke, Fstoppers; Photographer Sues Church Over Copyright Infringement

"A photographer is taking legal action against a small church in South Carolina for allegedly using his photograph without consent.

Erin Paul Donovan, a photographer from New Hampshire, has initiated a federal lawsuit against Wightman United Methodist Church in Prosperity, South Carolina. Donovan claims that his photograph, depicting New Hampshire’s White Mountains, was used on the church's website without his permission, specifically as a thumbnail for a sermon video dated June 2021...

The suit further alleges that the church not only used the image without authorization but also removed Donovan's copyright notice, name, and watermark from the photograph as it originally appeared on his website."

Court of Appeal ruling will prevent UK museums from charging reproduction fees—at last; The Art Newspaper, December 29, 2023

  Bendor Grosvenor , The Art Newspaper; Court of Appeal ruling will prevent UK museums from charging reproduction fees—at last

"A recent judgement on copyright in the Court of Appeal (20 November) heralds the end of UK museums charging fees to reproduce historic artworks. In fact, it suggests museums have been mis-selling “image licences” for over a decade. For those of us who have been campaigning on the issue for years, it is the news we’ve been waiting for.

The judgement is important because it confirms that museums do not have valid copyright in photographs of (two-dimensional) works which are themselves out of copyright. It means these photographs are in the public domain, and free to use.

Museums use copyright to restrict the circulation of images, obliging people to buy expensive licences. Any thought of scholars sharing images, or using those available on museum websites, was claimed to be a breach of copyright. Not surprisingly, most people paid up. Copyright is the glue that holds the image fee ecosystem in place.

What has now changed? Museums used to rely on the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which placed a low threshold on how copyright was acquired; essentially, if some degree of “skill and labour” was involved in taking a photograph of a painting, then that photograph enjoyed copyright. But subsequent case law has raised the bar, as the new Appeal Court judgement makes clear."