Steve House |
August 28th, 2005 03:48 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Gladwell
There is. Do a web search.
If you're hiring him to shoot stills of your production, they are your stills do with as you please. That's a given, under the circumstances.
Jay
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Not quite. The creator of a copyrightable work owns the copyright unless it's created as a "work for hire." But the act of paying someone to do the work does not in itself make it a work for hire. And unless this is a work for hire situation the photographer owns the copyright just like we own the copyright on a wedding video we might shoot. Work for hire can happen in a couple of ways. The first would be if the photographer was Jay's employee - paid a wage, taxes withheld, working under Jay's direction and subject to his supervision and control - and the photographs were created as part of his regular job duties. The employee taking the pictures at the photo studio in Sears would be a classic example. The other way it happens is if there is a valid written contract with the photographer that explicitly contains the words "work for hire" as applicable to the photographs being created. But as I understand it, other than under those circumstances a "work for hire" situation does not automatically exist even if the photographer is a paid contractor. If you hire a photographer to shoot stills on set, to shoot your wedding or take your portrait, to cover a news event, or to photograph the latest Paris fashions for your magazine, the photographer owns the copyright to the work unless they assign the rights over to you in writing or their employment contract spells out explicitly that it is a work for hire. That's how it comes about that Avedon owns the rights to all his editorial fashion work and not Vogue magazine even though it may have been created on paid assignment for them. For it to be automatic, they have to truly be a regular employee in every sense of the word.
But even if there's a written agreement saying that the photographs are made as a work for hire, they still might not be. It depends on where and how they are being used and the law specifically states what uses the work of an independent contractor can be put to and have the work considered work for hire. Found an interesting web site that disusses it in detail (copyrighted so I can't reproduce it here but here's the link -- http://copylaw.com/new_articles/wfh.html)
By the way, the same situation applies to our work as a videographer for our clients. We automatically hold the copyright on all video we create unless we explicitly assign the rights to the client in writing or our contract with them specifically states it is their propperty and was created as a work for hire, using those exact words. (And even if you assign all rights, after 35 years or so you can regain them on demand without payment by formally asserting your rights as author of the work.)
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