smartmoney.com advocating copyright infringement?

[john_h.1]

An recent article published by smartmoney.com written by Stacey Bradford <a

href="http://www.smartmoney.com/top5/index.cfm?story=20061108">here</a>

suggests, among other things, that parents of schoolchildren scan their school

photos to save money over purchasing new prints. I suppose there might be

school photographers out there that cede their copyrights but I don't know of

any. Surely someone mistakenly deleted the text about checking with the

photographer for usage rights first. Yeah. <p>

 

Maybe smartmoney and Ms. Bradford won't mind if we re-publish their articles

for our own economic advantage.<p>

 

Attorney Wright has an interesting <a

href="http://www.photoattorney.com">post</a> about this publication on her

site.

[dglickstein]

I think it is ironic that at the bottom of the web page there is a link to license Bradford's article! Follow that and you get an email address: licensinginfo@smartmoney.com

 

dG

[craig_gillette]

What is important not so much that the photographers haven't ceded their rights, but that the schools (and photographers) have turned the administrative and legal need for releases for "school use" from all the parents during registration into a moneymaking effort.

 

A ton of volunteer effort, subsidies (in school time, teacher salaries, attendance money, etc.) and administrative requirements (and some tradition) has turned the rather simple old "class picture" into a profit center that is almost impossible to attack for a new competitive effort.

[robert_fisher4]

Interesting piece. Not that it will do any good but I sent a letter to the editor chastising them for advocating unethical and legally questionable actions.

[craig_gillette]

You and all(well, some at least) of the readers of a wide variety of other photo forums for the last several weeks.

[mbenoist]

It's funny but I don't ever remember getting a model release form sent home allowing school photographers to take my kid's pictures. I'm not sure, this may not be required by law, but what is definitely criminal is the quality of some of these school photographers. Some of these shmucks should be thankful they got the school photo gig in the first place. And what kind of "economic advantage" are you getting out of sharing a picture of your own kid?

 

My basic question is this: How does the law read that gives a photographer copyrights to a school picture when a release was never offered or signed by the child's parent?

[robert_fisher4]

It's probably not a separate release Michael but there is likely something in the forms you sign to order a print package that discusses copyright and who has it. Since they're not using the images themselves (unless they want to use your child's photo in their advertising) for commercial purposes a release form probably isn't necessary but there is still the copyright issue.

[john_h.1]

"My basic question is this: How does the law read that gives a photographer copyrights to a school picture when a release was never offered or signed by the child's parent?'

 

Copyrights (which concern ownership of an image) have nothing to do with releases (which indicates permission to display the image of the people in it). THe photographer owns the image upon taking it and therefore owns the copyright. The photographer or anyone else can not use it for commercial purposes (or commit other invasion of pricacy torts with it) without permission which is proven by existence of the a executed release. I hope this clears it up for you.

[craig_gillette]

And buried within the forms you fill out year after year after year, is likely to be one that allows your child's picture to be taken for "official" school business. They may well have also incorporated into it language also dealing with use in for promotional and fund-raisng activities as well. So when the picture gets taken for the yearbook, the ID card (maybe if used) or the class pictures/ principal's mug shot album, etc., the "PTA" and the photo business take a crack at fund-raising.

[sam_lewis]

Have a look at:

 

http://www.law.com/jsp/newswire_article.jsp?id=1165917922867

[nolefan32]

I'm curious how this situation differs from the one being discussed on another thread about a gentleman able to re-print a photo and sell the prints because the photo belongs to the government.

 

Much of the discussion here seems to revolve around the photograher owning the copyright of the photo as soon as he takes it, but that isn't always the case. Work for hire belongs to the employer, not the creator. As a federal employee, I know this is true -- I have no legal right to any of the photographs I've taken on the job, the tax payers who ultimately pay my salary own them.

 

So in this case, once the school contracted for the photographer to come take thier class photos, don't the photos then become the property of the school as the employer?

[sam_lewis]

The problem here is that (1) the photographer is not an employee of the school, and (2) work for hire doctrine that would give the employer the rights to what photographer creates generally does not apply to contractors.

 

Unless the school specifically contracts for the rights to the images--which they never would as they would no doubt want to shift that costs to the parents who want reprints--then the photographer is nothing more than a contractor who owns the rights to what he or she creates.

 

Parents who purchase copies have certain rights vis-a-vis the physical copies they purchase (e.g., the legitimate copies). However, those rights are not unlimited, and do not include the right to reproduce the image.

 

Hope this helps clear it up...

[gaius1]

6 weeks later, that story is still up...

[john_h.1]

"once the school contracted for the photographer to come take thier class photos, don't the photos then become the property of the school as the employer?"

 

If you hire a plumber to fix your sink, you shouldn't have to get worker's compensation insurance for them, give them W-4s and withhold FICA from their payment and so on. That wouldn't seem right would it? Believe it or not, the law usually makes sense and it does so here. People don't become employees merely because they performed some task. It takes a lot more than that. Same with the class picture photographer.