If someone takes a photography using my camera, who owns the photo?

I know this is a completely random question. So I was thinking this morning. Let's say you allow someone for what ever reason to take a photo with your camera while you are watching them and that photo get's selected for cover of National Geographic magazine. It's your camera, your gear. You only allowed that person to compose and take that single shot with your camera gear. With all that in mind, who would own the photo and take credit for it?

Good question. I'm not sure but would say the camera owner?

This has been discussed much, the person that takes the photo is the owner, unless there is a written contract....

www.photographytalk.com/forum/photograph...ho-owns-the-pictures

If the camera is set up with the copyrighted information embedded in it, technically it belongs to the photographer that owns the camera because that image is gonna have a metadata file embedded to it which includes all the copyright information of the owner of the camera...

If the person borrowing the camera owns a SDHC card, it wont make a difference cause the images will have all the metadata information stored in it..

So first time you get a camera that is the first thing you should do...

I never knew that Adriana! But the way my camera is set up, it doesnt have my name on, i thought metadata only holds camera info.....lens, exposure etc? But on some cameras if saves the owners name (ie Canon 60d) but mine doesnt (nikon d90)

In film days when i worked for the Fire service photographic.....i used fire service photographic equipment, but i was employed by the fire service to do a job, i had to sign a contract whereas the fire service owned any photographs that were taken.

I would agreed with effron....and i would also say that this topic was covered some months ago.

Copyright law protects the person who created the artistic content. Strictly speaking, the fact that the camera automatically applies your copyright information to someone else's work product is a violation of the law. Ownership of the tools being used has no part whatsoever in copyright law, otherwise Microsoft would own the copyright to any anything ever written using Word, since they never release ownership of their software, but just allow their customers a limited license to use it.

Of course you can always sign away your rights by contract, and many employers force people to do just that as a condition of employment.

MajorMagee wrote: Copyright law protects the person who created the artistic content. Strictly speaking, the fact that the camera automatically applies your copyright information to someone else's work product is a violation of the law. Ownership of the tools being used has no part whatsoever in copyright law, otherwise Microsoft would own the copyright to any anything ever written using Word, since they never release ownership of their software, but just allow their customers a limited license to use it.

Of course you can always sign away your rights by contract, and many employers force people to do just that as a condition of employment.

That doesn't make sense. If someone takes my camera and fire offs a shot of a tree, I can't see how this would be breaking any sort of laws because my camera automatically copyrights the photo. It's my camera.

Monster wrote: That doesn't make sense. If someone takes my camera and fire offs a shot of a tree, I can't see how this would be breaking any sort of laws because my camera automatically copyrights the photo. It's my camera.

Its only "illegal" in the sense that you are technically (automatically) claiming ownership/copyright of someone else's protected "works". I very much doubt you would lend a friend a camera and they would turn around and sue you for copyright infringement... but ya never know. I think this would be more of an issue if a camera rental service rented cameras with this data filled out.

But anyways, Regardless... in the absence of a contract, the "photographer" who took the picture... as in composed the shot, pressed the shutter release... is the copyright owner. There really isnt any debate on that matter.

I say it's the photographer.

Look at a very famous photographer named "Annie L." I won't say her full name, because I have a penchant for making famous people mad for some reason.... LOL. Apparently (and so I hear) she has an army of assistants and workers who set up everything, get the lighting right, frame everything right on the tripod, pull the focus etc. etc. Annie comes in, presses the shutter button... THE CROWD GO'S WILD!

ANNIE IS SO TALENTED!

So that establishes that the person/people who set it all up don't own the copyright.

Now, how about ownership of the camera.

Unless what Adriana says is true (which it could be, I dunno) ownership of a camera obviously doesn't mean you own copyright on the images, or else camera rental houses would have a lot of suing to do.

Stealthy Ninja wrote: because I have a penchant for making famous people mad for some reason.... LOL. Apparently (and so I hear)

Sounds like there is a story there... care to share? lol

geoffellis wrote:

Stealthy Ninja wrote: because I have a penchant for making famous people mad for some reason.... LOL. Apparently (and so I hear)

Sounds like there is a story there... care to share? lol

I trolled a major photography troll blogger. Let's just leave it at that.

Let's say I have a rifle. I set up the scope on it and load the cartridges. I have it braced and aimed on a target and someone else trips the trigger and the bullet kills someone... I'm thinking both would be given some measure of credit for the crime.

Even more convoluted lets say another photographer makes the actual shot using a radio remote that happens to be on the same frequency - oops! Who gets the award?

Possesion is 9/10ths... We might need a judge for this one.

We can always create some improbable combination of circumstances to muddy the issue, but the underlying principle is pretty simple. If it's your creative effort then your work is protected by copyright unless you freely choose to give up those rights.

In America the photographer, usually defined as the person operating the camera, is automatically the copyright owner unless agreements have been made that state otherwise. For instance if you are in the employ of the US Government you may have signed a form stating that any photos taken on the job are public domain.

It doesn't matter what the camera thinks.

Even with automatic copyright it's best to register copyright with the Library of Congress if you really want to protect it.

Stealthy Ninja wrote:

geoffellis wrote:

Stealthy Ninja wrote: because I have a penchant for making famous people mad for some reason.... LOL. Apparently (and so I hear)

Sounds like there is a story there... care to share? lol

I trolled a major photography troll blogger. Let's just leave it at that.

LOL!!