The USCO is raising its registration fees for the first time since 2020, with new rates taking effect November 12, 2026. For visual creators, these increases are steep:
USCO Filing Fees
View the complete fee schedule.
Why This Matters
Photographers and artists often create hundreds or thousands of new works each year, so registration isn't an occasional expense. It's a recurring cost of protecting their livelihood. Higher fees often force creators to choose which works they can afford to protect, and some will stop registering altogether. That leaves more work vulnerable at a time when images are being stolen, scraped, and exploited at unprecedented scale.
Advocating for Creators
ImageRights founder and CEO Joe G. Naylor serves as president of the Digital Media Leadership Alliance (DMLA) and is an active member of the Copyright Alliance, where he advocates on behalf of photographers, artists, and the agencies that represent them. This letter campaign to Congress grew out of that work, and we're proud to share it with you.
Send a Letter to Congress
The Copyright Alliance has set up a simple tool that sends a letter to your two U.S. senators and your representative, asking them to stop the USCO from raising registration fees. The letter is already written for you:
It only takes a minute, and every letter adds to the pressure on Congress to act.
Agencies and Artist Representatives
Please share this campaign with the photographers and artists you represent. Click here to open a ready-to-send email with the campaign link already included. Just add your recipients. The more individual creators who weigh in, the stronger the message.
Thank you for standing up for the creative community.
The ImageRights Team