Forum Moderators: not2easy
I’ve got a copyright issue I would love some clarification on.
My boss took me abroad on a business trip to take photos to be used in marketing of the business. He paid for the film and development of the photos. Can somebody tell me who now owns the copyright on those images? E.g. if I leave can I take the photos with me?
There is no business contract between us.
Cheers.
While it *seems* like the copyright would be the boss's, I'm not so sure it would be unless there is something in your employment contract that indicates that anything you do while on the clock belongs to them. If no such agreement exists, then *perhaps* the copyright is yours. Morally, I'd say that it's the boss's, since he paid for the whole thing and the understanding was that the photos were to be used for business. But technically, you might still own the copyright.
To give semi-related example, I have a web site that has content that was partially created while I was at work. (I had the kind of job where there was a lot of "downtime," where you could do whatever you wanted to kill time.) Should the content of my site "belong" to my employer, just because I was on the clock while I created it? Obviously not, since there was no agreement between us of that nature. At another job I used to draw little doodles on company scratch paper. Did the company own the copyright to those doodles? Again, obviously not. (But of course no one would *want* to own copyright to the doodles, but that's beside the point.)
However, like I said before, even if, technically, you own the copyright to those photos, it seems to be pretty dirty pool to claim ownership. The only way I could see it being okay to look into it is if:
1) You are a really, really good photographer and they aren't paying you remotely as much as they'd have to pay an independent photographer with similar skills.
2) Your job description and duties have nothing to do with photography, there's no agreement in your employment about them "owning" copyright to anything you do on the job, and basically you feel like they have exploited your skills and are paying you peanuts.
On the other hand, if you are not a direct employee and are not performing the work at their site on their equipment, then it most likely would need to be in the contract contract for your boss (then he really isn't your boss, is he) to claim the copyright.
Here is the appropriate circular to read:
[copyright.gov...]
Of course, if you are not in the United States, then none of this applies.
Come to think of it, it just might depend on the copyright laws of whatever country each individual picture was taken in.
