So called "copyright" pictures

This happened to my wife just today, at Walgreen's, although it did not get as far as the scanner. The clerk would not let her use the machine, even though there was no protographer's or studio's name on the prints, only because it was on Kodak "professional" print paper.

Reply to
Bryan Hackney
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Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote: [...]

There has to be something in copyright law to be said about the disappearance of the author.

Reply to
Bryan Hackney

Good question. It would be interesting to see just how that was done.

I see no reason why not.

Incorrect. The photographer, as the one to create the work, holds the copyright unless it was assigned to your daughter (or someone else) as part of the photography contract - something which is quite rare, as wedding photographers make their living off of prints and reprints. There is more involved in wedding photography (and, indeed, in nearly all photography) than merely recording an event that is taking place. If you doubt this, I suggest posting your same question to rec.photo.

Reply to
Jay Maynard

There have been a lot of posts on this thread. So I might as well jump in here.

The assumption that a watermark can be defeated by adding noise is not always accurate. There is a lot of ways to add redundancy so that a signal can be easily extracted in the presence of noise. In fact, the original picture is actually noise for the "hidden" watermark. So adding a little more noise would not create a problem for recovering the watermark. Think of it as a question of signal to noise ratio. You can recover a signal that has a negative signal to noise ratio if you use enough redundancy. That is how they send signals from deep space probes back to earth.

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Rick "rickman" Collins

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rickman

CBFalconer> If anyone has copyright on these pictures it is my CBFalconer> daughter, not someone hired to record the event for a fee.

Assuming you are in the USA, unless you had a contract that specifically transferred the copyrights to your daughter, you are absolutely wrong. The default situation is that the photographer owns the copyright on pictures that he takes when you hire him.

Reply to
Christopher C. Stacy

Bryan> Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote: Bryan> [...] >> >>> If anyone has copyright on these pictures it is my daughter, not >>> someone hired to record the event for a fee. >> Sorry, but legally, the photographer owns the copyright unless it was >> explicitly assigned to you in a contract of sale. Wedding >> photographers love to stick it to you vigorously by charging for >> albums. When we were choosing wedding photographers, one of our >> criteria was to make sure we would own the copyright and negatives.

Bryan> There has to be something in copyright law to be said about Bryan> the disappearance of the author.

The status of a copyright is not affected by whether you happen to be able to locate the copyright owner. (And if he died, then his estate owns the copyright.)

The practical question is whether you think he's going to find out and sue you for making unauthorized copies of his work. On the other hand, it could be very costly if he did.

Reply to
Christopher C. Stacy

The law allows the copyright to be inherited and stay valid for a number of years (49? 75?).

Reply to
Richard Henry

Unfortunately not. A photographer automatically has the copyrights on the pictures he takes. Even when he is hired to take the pictures. The client pays for the work and the prints.

Meindert

Reply to
Meindert Sprang

Firstly, the position on copyright is that the person commissioned to take the photographs is the copyright owner. Annoying, isn't it? Unless a transfer of copyright is agreed it's not legally yours to copy.

Second is that there is invisible watermarking that can survive photocopying and other copying methods.

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Third, as other people mentioned the emulsion can be invisibly marked

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Peter

Reply to
moocowmoo

Not necessarily true. If I commission a painting (in England), I get the painting but not the copyright, which is subject to a separate agreement else it remains with the "artist". I'd have to get permission to copy my "own" painting.

If you want to own the copyright, you have to pay for it.

Reply to
Bill Davy

Digimarc is the one I've played around with. IME, it can be removed if you're deliberately trying to do so, and the image manipulation software vendor is not in cahoots with them, with some loss in quality. I just did this to evaluate how robust it was, putting a watermark in a photo myself and then trying to deliberately remove it. It easily survived changes in image format, cropping, retouching and other typical innocent manipulations, and even bicubic resampling to fairly low resolutions (which is pretty tough).

Looking at a few of Kodak's many patents on this kind of thing, it could be a pre-exposing of the media to create many very small dots on the photo. If that's true, a slight blurring of the photo by some optical means might be able to defeat it.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

You don't tell us exactly how long ago "Several years ago" was, but steganography (as suggested by others) is extremely unlikely unless the photo went through digital processing. That's very likely for the past few years, and unlikely (although entirely possible) before then.

Probably identified the print as having been taken on a "professional" film. Color rendition is markedly different than with "consumer" films. I can tell the difference by eye, so it must be possible to do it with a computer too.

It depends on the agreement signed. A photographer hired as a contractor will always hold the copyright unless he signs it away.

Tim.

Reply to
Tim Shoppa

of

The American law follows Mickey Mouse, and other in other countries, the law dutifully follows America. So the copyright remains in the original owner's estate until Mikey Mouse is no longer economically viable.

Reply to
David Brown

If there is nothing on the print to indicate that it was produced by a professional photographer, which my response would be "give me your name, and call your manager."

Over the years I've spent quite a bit of money on so-called "professional" film, paper, and chemistry, not because I'm in the business of photography (I'm not), but because I can get better results by avoiding the "one-size-fits-all" consumer products and taking, developing, and printing my pictures. A system that uses the type of paper as a determinant of copyright is broken.

While it's unlikely that a professional photographer will be using low-end consumer paper products, there isn't any justification for assuming that the converse is true. In the areas of nominal interest of the two newsgroups in which this thread has appeared, I think that we all have run into the same situation: lots of nonprofessionals use software (sometimes stolen) designed for professional users, but it's rather uncommon to see the reverse (graphic artists, for example, don't use "My First Painting Program").

Call the manager, then call Walgreen's regional office.

Joe Morris

Reply to
Joe Morris

The potential fines for them are quite significant.. I would hope that this would not work.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Although following Mickey Mouse is certainly a factor, the most recent round of extensions (to 70 years for corporations or 70 years after the death of the author, if I recall correctly) was passed in Europe before the USA. Conformity with Europe was cited as one factor in extending it here.

-- Patrick

Reply to
Patrick Scheible

Why does the same not hold true for software? Doesn't seem different at all to me.

Ralph

Reply to
Ralph Mason

I believe that as a rule more "creative" works are presumed to belong to the author, whereas most software is considered to be problem-solving, using engineering or mathematical skills. However, the lines are blurred for people who create 3D computer art, or write interactive fiction, or similar media that can only exist on computers. Years ago when I worked for a platform video game company they claimed copyright to "audio-visual effects" in an attempt to have the same broad protection against non-literal copying that motion pictures and songs enjoy. I have no idea if this concept is legally valid or has in fact ever been tested, but some elaborate video games do resemble movies -- simple, brain-dead movies, to be sure.

Jim McGinnis

Reply to
Jim McGinnis

It does.

A large part of software is covered by employment contracts that the authors are under, which place the copyright or ownership with the employer. And a large part of software is not published in source form, and therefore requires no copyright. It's held as a trade secret or proprietary property.

It's oyxmoronic to place a copyright notice on source code that is never intended to be published. Even in the accidental case, the notices should tell of the proprietary nature of the work, not of a copyright.

Reply to
Bryan Hackney

I would think it depends on exactly what is in the contract**. As an employee, photographer or code monkey, I think you don't have any rights to your work.

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**However, it is unclear whether software--computer code itself--falls within any of the work made for hire categories. For this reason, persons who hire independent contractors to work on software should never rely on the work made for hire rule. Instead, they should have the independent contractor assign all copyright rights to the hiring party. (See Chapter 11, Initial Copyright Ownership, for detailed discussion.) The hiring party can then register the software as a transferee as discussed in Section 2 below.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Spehro Pefhany

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