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Copyright is a topic near and dear to my heart. I have a photo club that I lead in my area with 520 members. I frequently get asked about copyright issues and I hear a lot of Internet BS getting tossed around as gospel. The first rule of copyright is that it begins with the shutter click. The second rule is that copyright is only enforceable if the photo has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. The copyright attaches to the original author of the work unless the work is created under contract to another person where the copyright is expressly transferred to the second party. The 3rd rule of copyright is that it is only enforceable in Federal Court. It is the only expressed right in the unamended Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 ), ahead of free speech or the right to bear arms or any of the rest of the amendments. An unregistered work that is infringed upon must be registered with the Copyright Office prior to any lawsuit being filed. If an unregistered infringement occurs, statutory awards may not be available. Infringements of registered works are subject to up to $150,000 in penalties plus court costs and attorney fees. I always recommend my photographers register their works at least once a year as a collection. Registration fees are cheap enough, $55 standard fee, $35 for a single work. I've registered 100,000 photos in my life. Doesn't matter if the photos are crap or not. Registered is registered and it protects your butt from all sorts of industry douchebaggery. Pay $35 and electronically register you photo. Now. I also warn my students to NEVER post anything on social media unless they have READ the TOS for that site. If you post to FaceBook, it's theirs. Period. Their TOS gives them a license to use anything you post for their own use, including their affiliates. Most of the other social media places have the same or similar TOS. So, register your work and be extremely careful about who and how you grant publication rights to your work. If you are going to write a book and publish it, get an attorney first. Secure your rights! I've had more than one person in my group that has taken a very nice photo, posted it on FB, then seen their work on a billboard or on an airport wall and they didn't get anything from the Court for damages because the work wasn't registered prior to the infringement. A good question to ask a potential copyright attorney is, "Where will you file my claim if someone steals my work?" If the answer is anything other than Federal Court, walk away from them fast. They don't know anything about copyright law and you are being hustled. That kind of attorney will bleed you dry pursuing all sorts of local Court Tort complaints and get you nothing in the end. No to small claims court! No to District Court! No to out-of-court settlements or deals. Don't settle for tens of thousands when you are entitled to potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in statutory and compensatory damages.

Truly I do not know what the knocks mean so I do not knock. There is no point in inadvertently knocking a declaration of war nor an offer of sexual favors "banned in 27 states and the District of Columbia" to the boss of the woods. I don't think all of those knocks are rocks or sticks, I think some may be hand clap, mouth pops, and tooth clacks. Given the lack of suitable materials in some locations, and the apparent instant availability of whatever is used, I suspect the BFs making the mouth sounds are very much closer than we realize thus accounting for otherwise unaccountable volume. Some people believe the number of knocks matches the number of humans. I've heard knocks 4-5 occasions ... it tracks. However, my then-partner in research said she heard a knock. I didn't hear it. There were 3 of us. So ... dunno. In at least one instance, I think the wood knock was intended for me, I'm not sure there were any other BFs around. MIB

I would like to hear what others have to say on this subject. I am sure there is no wrong answer. I particularly would like to know about what you have to say about the tree knocks I have been experiencing when I am leaving the woods, on three occasions when I have left the tree line I have heard knocks. I experienced on several occasions before the knocks started, the sound of very large rocks or something splashing into the pond I was walking next to which was about about 150 feet from me, it was dark so I could not see what caused it but sounded like something that weighed about 1-10 pounds, that hit the water. First time was when I was leaving the woods which I always do after dark, the same area right when I came out of the tree line, leaving the woods, I heard two very loud smacking sounds of what sounded like 2 rocks, being hit together right in the location that I was doing my standing meditation in. I tried to duplicate the sound the next day but there are no large rocks in the area, and the small rocks I could find and smacking them together as hard as I could only made a sound about 1/8 of the volume of the hits I heard. Second time I went for a long hike in these woods and, and then heard a single knock of wood about 150 feet from me right when I was at the side of my car which was parked about 10 feet from the tree line. Third time, I was again leaving the woods at the tree line, and it was about 25 feet from me a double tree knock sound, this one sounded like it might have been about 15 or so feet high, not sure, I immediately stopped and took my two knives out and clacked them together two times but did not get any reply. Of course it was dark again and I can see ok in the open areas without a flashlight at night but this was in the wooded area, and it was just black, so I could not see anything. I was told the reason I can see in the woods at night in this area, is because it is in an urban area and there are lights from houses in the area shining into the sky and reflecting back down on the ground. I have only heard a tree knock once in the woods while I was in them, and it sounded like two kids talking to each other walking down the trail on the other side of the creek from me and then sounded like they were running down the trail as they were talking very loudly, and then a single tree knock but sounded like it was done with a baseball bat, and sounded like it was a much louder sound than what I could have made, and sounded like they were headed towards the road. It was still about 30 minutes before sunset. At the time I thought it was two kids about the age of about 10 years old, but the more I thought about it, I started to have doubts, because of the location, for kids this area is kind of scary, because of the way the the trail is not all so easy to go down, you have to walk through a patch of grass and reeds about 6 feet tall, and remnants of tents set up from homeless people that have abandoned them. All of this has happened in the same woods. Thanks in advance for your kind answers.

The wood knocks we (my hunting partner and I) were hearing when bow hunting the central coast range of Oregon in the time between 1990 and 1994 occurred differently at different times. Some times it was two to five when we first got into the area and then it was quite. Other times it would continue sporadicly over the course of the evening. Just one or two at a time with long spaces between. Maybe 8 or so over the course of several hours. One time, it was continuous (at least an hour or more, with about 5 to 10 min between) as we walked up an old cat road that was just a game trail by then. That's at least twenty knocks. The road also had trees about 12 to 15 feet tall along it that had the tops twisted and hanging down about 10 feet or so high on the trees. I also have begun to think that some knocks or even all of them are vocalizations.

Great advice, Belpherion! Came out with my own self-published book last December. Got the ISBN number and registered the work with the U.S. Copyright Office. Only way to go. It's in the Library of Congress, too. It's a unique, one of a kind type of book with no competitors which is the second reason that it truly needed protecting. It was a three year process from the research phase to the cover design and interior layout. I did everything except the final professional printing but made sure the copyright was in place BEFORE sending the files off to the printer. Too much work went into the book to just to end up losing it to someone or a publisher. P.S. Your photography is nothing short of excellent. Was B&W film (Ilford films loaded into Pentax K1000's). Ilford's ASA 50 was my all-time favorite film. Still is.

It's not though, because most people outside of "this community" don't even have any idea that people suggest such things in seriousness. They take it as crazy because the idea of a giant hairy proto-human walking around in the woods that can consistently avoid our detection with an astonishing success rate is simply unfathomable to them, in the sense that they literally cannot imagine such a creature, or more precisely cannot imagine such skills of evasion coming from natural ability and intelligence alone. Add to that the goofy name "bigfoot", a couple exposed hoaxes, the general attitude of media coverage, and the absence of anything science can take to the bank in over 60 years, and there you have it. It has much more to do with the general idea held by most of Western civilization of man having completely conquered the world than it does with differing viewpoints within the community of proponents.

My field objectives go beyond simply believing something is out there that I can exchange wood knocks or vocalizations with. Nothing can be learned from that after you have a direct encounter with a BF and know they exist. After you know they exist, the next step is get close enough to learn something through observation, pictures, etc. That, unless you are very lucky, means putting yourself in their way somehow. I say that because in any given situation they can move faster than we can unless we are on or in a vehicle. If they know you are present because you are knocking and howling you cannot get in front of them and they will not blunder into you if they know where you are. I estimate that they walk twice as fast as we do without obstructions like heavy forest and probably 4 times faster with obstructions. That makes it impossible to chase or track and catch up. You have to situate yourself so they blunder into you. Because of that, the knock/howl methodology seems to be a dead end and the Finding Bigfoot series was good evidence of that. The show principal characters would insert into the field, occasionally hear a response to a knock or whoop, then after a couple of hours not hear a thing. Any BF present would simply withdraw and watch the human show from a distance. .

Now that is not right, First off, We Know almost nothing about them. Secondly with that said, without knowing or prove people saying, I saw them Cloak, I saw them walk into a Portal. I saw them with UFO's... I believe all things are possible. But dont you think proving they exist first would be a good start, before adding all the other stuff. because we just dont know enough about them... This why the people take it as crazy.... Until we can actually figure out Migration, mating, Territory... we actual have nothing. All it takes is 1 or 2 people throwing out landish theories out there. To make it bad for the real people trying to figure this out. That I can agree with...... But again, First and foremost should be real hard evidence... I without that. we are all guessing

Total for North America. I'm confident there are many more than that; probably close to 1 million in North America. There are an estimated 200,000 in Alaska alone. I agree strongly, and add that sasquatches are likely susceptible to human diseases, so very well may have suffered catastrophic losses in the 16th Century along with aboriginal Homo sapiens in the New World that they never fully recovered from.

I do not think the number of knocks in my case was significant. They simply timed it about 30-45 seconds apart until I figured it out and left them alone. I do not think they were concerned about their position as I knew within +/- 10 yards where they were but just was too tired (and maybe smart) to really investigate. I suspect if I had advanced to them things would have turned out differently. My guys, and I have run in to them 4-5 times over the last 10 years, was simply on the very outskirts of their hunting zone. I am tired of deer eating all of my shrubs so I am happy for them to kill a few deer and lunch on my peaches when they are in season.

I've recorded some barks in the past but they weren't suspect really. The ones I have suspicions of being bf are in other people's recordings based on other associated vocals I've recorded and match up with theirs. There is a vocal at 3:19 in the video I posted that matches one of mine.

Joe, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only researcher to fall into a campfire. Fortunately, I was not alone when I slipped on a wet root in the dark and tumbled into the fire ring. My buddies reacted instantly, rolling me out of the hot coals and flames so quickly that I only hade a hole burned in my camo pants to show for it. Without them there to save my sorry butt, I could have been seriously burned, as I fell in such a way that I was having trouble getting my feet under me without putting my bare hands into the fire, and the stone fire ring was making it difficult to roll out. Yes, we were all sober, thank goodness. Now when we have a fire, I'm told to stay away and let others tend to it!! I also get out alone, which I shouldn't do at my age, but it's difficult to stay home when others are not available to join me. When I do go out alone, I am very conscious of my safety, and stick to mild trails. It's very tempting to check out the sandbar in the creek at the bottom of a steep, rocky incline, but I leave that for the days when my younger fellow researchers can join me.

Updated with youtube video of thievery in Colorado <<<<>>>> Intelligent yes, harmless no. Their memory is such that an incident occurred 11 years after the same young bear learned from it's mother I had a large store triple tube feeder of blackoil sunflower seeds on an elevated backporch with stairs. Eleven years after that feeder was ravaged and removed permanently there was a visit up that flight of stairs resulting in the loss of my back porch door. Humans do condition them for problem encounters for sure. The bear aware program nationally is very insightful and helpful in this respect . Here is an interesting Colorado lesson: https://gazette.com/ap/state/bears-euthanized-after-camper-attacked-in-colorado-increased-bear-activity/article_7cab7328-5338-5c9d-9887-dab27b899628.html This is a little lighter Colorado story that is smokin' hot: https://gazette.com/ap/state/video-bear-attempts-theft-of-pot-dispensary-dumpster-in-colorado/article_592b84fd-f3da-5b85-8b12-c1fa252314d1.html

That's the mental illness side of the coin. Lot of people do not want truth, they want personal validation. They can be the same thing but aren't necessarily so. If you put truth first, validation will come when truth is found, but if you put validation first, truth may never come. MIB

Some of our resident sasquatch whisperers vigorously defended the supposed eye. Pepperidge Farms remembers.