Interesting copyright question: Photos taken with stolen equipment

There's a story that's been circulating the internet this week about photos and a stolen tablet: an individual's home was burglarized, among the stolen things is a Toshiba tablet. The people in possession of his stolen tablet are taking photos, which - presumably unknown to them - are being automatically uploaded by the tablet to the original owner's Dropbox account.

The original story was here, but it has been edited and scrubbed pretty clean by the original owner:
http://www.glocktalk.c​om …/showthread.php​?t=1454774

A different version of the story, with photos still intact, is here:
http://gizmodo.com …wner-with-horror-pictures

[I make no comment as to whether the individuals in the photograph are the thieves]

So the question arises:
Who owns the copyright to the photos?
Does it matter if the equipment was stolen?
Does it matter if the photographer is the thief, or simply an unknowing recipient of stolen goods?

My guess is the copyright still lies with the photographer in the pictures.
An acquaintance, whose "buddy is a copyright lawyer" says that the theft supersedes the possessors' right to the copyright, and the copyright lies with the original owner of the tablet, whether the photographer is the thief or simply the unlucky holder of stolen goods.

Completely hypothetical and for the sake of discussion:
If the possessors of the tablet own the copyright, do they have any case against the original owner for distributing their works without their knowledge or consent?

Who owns copyright on photos taken Rented equipment ?
Who owns copyright on photos taken borrowed equipment ?
Who owns copyright on photos taken with rented equipment paid with spouse's credit card ?
Who owns copyright on photos taken with rented equipment paid with stolen credit card ?
Who owns copyright on photos taken with stolen equipment ?
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I think in US it's the same answer for all of the above questions.

I would be inclined to agree that the Theft trumps the Copyright issue...

The post-theft images were not captured "in good faith"

whoever the judge rules in favor of after the inevitable hypothetical lawsuit.

Your acquaintance might be wrong. So far no state law (which the larceny law is) can transfer property that is identified owned by the federal law under Constitutional mandate, not even as a penalty for a crime. They can send him to jail for burglary, and they can recover the tablet and the memory cards, but the copyright belongs to the burglar (of course, if the thief has not managed to save the images to some other media, it could be a moot point if the owner deletes them).

That's why courts have ruled that even graffiti artists own the copyright of art they do on someone else's walls, even if they trespassed to get there.

Now, if there is action that can somehow transfer the thief's property in general as a penalty for the crime, then the copyright might be considered transferrable because it is property.

But a state court can't rule that the copyright belongs to the camera owner because the camera was stolen. They have to have some law that transfers the thief's property.

Copyright ownership and burglary (of the tool used to create the copyrighted works) are completely separate and one has no bearing on the other. Does it make for an odd situation? Sure does. But they're still independent issues.

So, since the photos were used without the thief's permission I assume, he can sue the owner of the tablet who is in possession of the photos and has posted them for copyright infringement? I would love to see this case go to court and hear the arguments.

gjl711 wrote in post #15305254
So, since the photos were used without the thief's permission I assume, he can sue the owner of the tablet who is in possession of the photos and has posted them for copyright infringement? I would love to see this case go to court and hear the arguments.

They case would go to the copyright court, and only issues relative to copyright law would be germane:

Who pressed the shutter release?
Who cooperated in the creative act?
What written agreements were there between the parties?

Burglary is not a copyright issue, and copyright courts have already ruled that such issues are not germane.

Imagine someone broke into your property and painted a picture on your wall. You photographed it and used it commercially. Yes, he can sue you for copyright infringment. It's been done, the artist won the case. Yes, he was guilty of the state crime of breaking and entering and trespassing; yes, he still won the copyright case in federal court.

Bonus question:
Thief gets arrested and goes to jail - can he sue the owner for using his image without permission ?
And recover "pain and suffering" money for going to the jail that is caused by using his image? The thief never licensed the image to be used for throwing him in jail
(there probably some law enforcement exception \ like a non-commercial portfolio use that do not require model release)

Kirill wrote in post #15305455
Bonus question:
Thief gets arrested and goes to jail - can he sue the owner for using his image without permission ?
And recover "pain and suffering" money for going to the jail that is caused by using his image? The thief never licensed the image to be used for throwing him in jail
(there probably some law enforcement exception \ like a non-commercial portfolio use that do not require model release)

No, copyright doesnt apply to evidence. If police know of a photo, the owner cant use copyright claims as excuse to make it "out of bounds" somehow for use as evidence.

Kirill wrote in post #15305455
Bonus question:
Thief gets arrested and goes to jail - can he sue the owner for using his image without permission ?
And recover "pain and suffering" money for going to the jail that is caused by using his image? The thief never licensed the image to be used for throwing him in jail
(there probably some law enforcement exception \ like a non-commercial portfolio use that do not require model release)

It would not be the owner using the photo as evidence, it would be the state. I suspect they could make a "fair use" case pretty easily.

gjl711 wrote in post #15305254
So, since the photos were used without the thief's permission I assume, he can sue the owner of the tablet who is in possession of the photos and has posted them for copyright infringement? I would love to see this case go to court and hear the arguments.

Actually no, when the images ARE the news story it's considered fair use.

Hope their stupidity leads to an arrest.

RDKirk wrote in post #15305268
Imagine someone broke into your property and painted a picture on your wall. You photographed it and used it commercially. Yes, he can sue you for copyright infringment. It's been done, the artist won the case. Yes, he was guilty of the state crime of breaking and entering and trespassing; yes, he still won the copyright case in federal court.

Would you put a link to the case please?

buddy is a copyright lawyer..... Wow..... He must not make a good living at it...

Before retirement, I was a regular lawyer... Ownership of equipment doesn't matter. The person who clicks the shutter owns the image....

Practical side.... Is the thief going to shoot a pic that is good enough to put himself in jail to claim the image? No... .Come on....

Same for the guy with the B&E, yes he owns the pic he paints on your wall....... No he'd not going to give you a problem over it for 5+ years in prison....

Mark H

lui-même wrote in post #15306245
Would you put a link to the case please?

I was accidentally conflating three cases in my head. The first was the case of photographer Benjamin Ham. Ham won a case in which he was being prevented from selling landscape images taken of a property while he was trespassing there. Among a couple of things the federal court did was to rule that the issue of copyright is beyond the jurisdiction of state law, even when the photograph is taken illegally.

The other was the case of the disposition of a graffiti painting by the artist known as Banksy. A graffiti work of his was rescued from a building to be demolished by a gallery that recognized its worth. The owners of the building recognized its worth at that point and sued for its return. The owners of the building dropped the case when they realized they would wind up paying much more money to the city for the demolition of the building by obfuscating their ownership.

The third thing I had conflated in my head was the US Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA). It was under this law (not copyright law), that Kent Twitchell settled a $1.1 million lawsuitagainst the US government for painting over his landmark mural of Edward Ruscha.

But when taken together, I think these three cases do make it likely that a thief using a stolen camera will still retain copyright of the work, even if he goes to jail for the theft of the camera.