Copyright question

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brianwar

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If various photographers are using a camera which belongs to none of them, who owns the copyright?

This is happening at a place of work and no additional contracts have been signed or amendments made to a current contract which mention the camera and/or photography/copyright.
 
i would of imagined it was based on the person who took the pic rather than who owns the equipment it was taken on :cuckoo:
 
my understanding is that under normal circumstances, it's the photographer (ie, the actual person which presses the shutter button) owns the copyright, but if those pictures were taken as part of your employment (ie, your boss says take some pictures of x for the website), the copyright will remain with your employer - those rules don't just cover photography but all types of intellectual property unless of course there is a contract which specifies otherwise.
 
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cuthbert said:
my understand is that under normal circumstances, it's the photographer (ie, the actual person which presses the shutter button) owns the copyright, but if those pictures were taken as part of your employment (ie, your boss says take some pictures of x for the website), the copyright will remain with your employer - those rules don't just cover photography but all types of intellectual property unless of course there is a contract which specifies otherwise.
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of course cuthbert is right if it is part of your job then the employer owns the copyright
 
The people pressing the shutter are not employed as photographers, they are employed as instructors (not of photography) and the company has installed a camera and asks the instructors to fire it at appropriate times to capture images of the instructees which they then try to sell to them.

I understand that there will be a clause in the contract that outlines their duties and it will include something like "...and perform any other tasks as required by management" so they are required to take the photographs without any amendment to their contract but I just wonder if the instructors really should have signed something to relinquish copyright, that seems like it would need to be specifically laid out somewhere.
 
brianwar said:
The people pressing the shutter are not employed as photographers, they are employed as instructors (not of photography) and the company has installed a camera and asks the instructors to fire it at appropriate times to capture images of the instructees which they then try to sell to them.

I understand that there will be a clause in the contract that outlines their duties and it will include something like "...and perform any other tasks as required by management" so they are required to take the photographs without any amendment to their contract but I just wonder if the instructors really should have signed something to relinquish copyright, that seems like it would need to be specifically laid out somewhere.
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My understanding is that when a photo is taken by an employee in the course of his employment then the copyright automatically belongs to the employer unless there is an agreement to the contrary. The lack of any specific agreement as to copyright favours the employer not the employee.
 
Putting the work aspect aside. If i passed my camera to someone to take a photo of me or something else, who would hold the copyright? Unlikely to be an issue but still possible.
 
Alastair said:
But who are "UK Copyright Service"? - a very official looking website, but it's a private business.
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They're a bunch of scam artists who've created a business to fill a void.;)

As so many photographers are advised on forums to register their work by Americans, they have provided a means to do so.

There's no UK legal precedent, just that Nature abhors a vacuum.

I'm only jealous, I wish I'd thought of it first.:naughty:
 
Andy_S said:
Putting the work aspect aside. If i passed my camera to someone to take a photo of me or something else, who would hold the copyright? Unlikely to be an issue but still possible.
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The person who took the photograph.
 
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