I did a blog post the other day on a Photographers Rights when shooting in public places and in doing so I realized there are a whole lot of people out there looking for the same answers as me.
I've been googling and reading and reading and googling trying to come up with something and while I didn't find the answers to my questions on that issue, I did find a new issue.
There are, obviously, many different types of photographers out there. There are those who are commissioned by a third party to take a specific photograph of a person or event (ie. portrait, wedding, commercial etc) and then there are those who use photographs as works of art, seperate from what or who it represents.
This obviously raises questions. The big one being - who owns the picture? Is it the person who took the photograph or the person who paid for the picture to be taken? and what rights does the person in the picture actually have?
In the past, Canadian law (under the Copyright Act) has treated photographs more as "things" than as a creative work with the copyright going, basically, to the person who owned the negative. However, things are about to change! There is a new bill in the works which is moving photographs more into the "arts" category and giving it the same status as things like literary works.
What this means is that ownership of a copyright of a picture will be based more on the photographers personal creativity than on who paid to have the picture taken.
It's called Bill C-60 and it is an act to amend the copyright act. It's only in the first reading stage but it says this about photography:
"Under the Copyright Act, photographers are treated differently from other artists: the person who takes the photograph is often not considered the author of his or her work....read more here
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out and how it'll affect photographers roles in the arts as well as in the commercial world.
I'm a professional model and
I'm a professional model and had a photographer in nyc do a test shoot for me. This photographer now says that she'll use it on her website if she so chooses. Do I have any say? I don't want her using my image for anything. Need advice. Thanks in advance.
Thanks for your comments, Mir
Thanks for your comments, Miranda. I totally appreciate the insight you have on this area.
As far as the street photography thing, while I know it's in our best interest to get the subjects to sign "model release forms" I think there's something about it that detracts from the event. I think people are likely to feel more sketchy about you taking their pic if they have to sign something. I also wonder how those release forms actually hold up in court if someone doesn't want you using their pic and yet signed the form.
More questions to research...
Copyright is quite a bit di
Copyright is quite a bit different in the US than in Canada. In the states,
it is generally understood that copyright follows the photographer. You shoot
it, you own it, except in the case of work for hire or employee situations. In
Canada on the other hand, our copyright law has it that the person who
commissions the work owns the copyright unless otherwise assigned. As a result,
I don't know of any professional photographer in Canada who doesn't have a
clause assigning themselves copyright in their contracts. Without this, if I
shoot a wedding my client owns the copyright on anything I've shot, and I have
no rights to the work whatsoever. Not cool.
As for the person in the photo, they don't have rights when it pertains to
copyright but they do have the ability to speak up if the photo is used in a way
that could be damaging - hence we get into the model release issue. So, you can
take a photo on the street of anyone and if you weren't commissioned to do it,
the copyright belongs to you. That said, it's not necessarily a good idea to
sell the image as stock or use it in advertising without a model release from
anyone recognizable in the photo as they could come back and sue you depending
on how the photo is used. Many street photographers carry around very simple
business card sized model releases for this reason so they can get the OK after
they take the photo, ensuring they are covered if they want to sell the photo,
for example. The exception to needing a model release would be for editorial use
ie: newspaper, as long as the person is not being depicted as doing something
they weren't/aren't. For example, if you had a shot of someone walking out of a
door in a building next to an article about drug problems in the area of the
city, you might be up for a call from a lawyer. If you ran an article about the
nice day at the beach and showed people at the beach, you're cool.
Some more info about potential changes to our copyright law can be found here, although what you referenced basically covers it:
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/incrp-prda.nsf/en/rp00872e.html#A1_7(standard disclaimer for my comment: I'm not a lawyer, just a photographer explaining how I understand the law as it pertains to me and my business!)Thanks for opening discussion on these topics, there is not enough information that applies to Canada and it would be helpful if things were more clear and available for us!
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