Dr E D F Williams wrote: > > It would appear that although the title of the thread is still strange the > subject matter has changed. I'm back and ready to make a whole load of > filters should it happen again.
Oh, we know that you will! Why don't you just drop it Doctor. Everybody else has. A doctor who keeps tearing the scab off a now-healing wound has some issues to address himself... > Photographers don't usually hand over the negatives after they have > completed an ordinary job, like taking pictures of a wedding, or making > studio portraits. They hang on to them and hope more prints will be ordered. > I'm also willing to bet that if the client demanded the negatives there > would be immediate disagreement about who owns them. I'm also sure that if > it got to court, the client would win and get his negatives, unless there > was some kind of prior agreement. But who would sign an agreement allowing a > photographer to keep pictures of them? To what end? What possible reason, or > excuse, can a photographer have for doing this if the matter came up? I'm > quite sure most people would say no. And perhaps question the photographer's > intentions. It's silly and in my opinion unethical to try to hold on to > negatives that belong to someone else. If a client gets a load of prints > made elsewhere that's too bad. But what a client cannot do is lay claim to > the pictures. He cannot say he took them and if he does its time for > litigation. But it can get very complicated. Copyright Law might look quite > simple on paper, but specialist litigators make vast amounts of money when > it comes to the application. > > When a client pays to have something - say products - photographed its very > clear that everything to do with them, including the negatives, belong to > him - not the picture taker. > > The copyright of printed matter, novels, biographies and such-like is a > little more difficult. An author passes the copyright over to the publisher > as part of a contract - usually. I didn't (don't) but such an agreement has > to be negotiated. So anyone getting a photo book ready beware. It's best to > retain the copyright oneself, if at all possible. But Daniel knows more > about this stuff an I'm sure he'd have more useful comments than these. Thanks for your exposition. I for one appreciate it. = rest snipped = keith whaley
