what makes a photograph ...yours?

so, i was having a debate with some friends...

clearly, if I took a picture personally with my own personal camera, did all the PP (if any) etc...there is no doubt the ownership...

but

what if I took a picture with someone elses camera
(an imaginary scenario - some nice old couple asks me to shoot them in front of Big Ben - and I do so)
then the camera, memory card is theirs - but I pressed a button (probably without too much thought) and hand back the camera.
it's their's - no?

but

if during that picture, I was the only one in the world to capture a true UFO landing in the backdrop of Big Ben .... and the news outlets all want to pay huge money for the picture.... and fame...and fortune...and apple pie....

is it theirs? or mine?

-or-

if I help a buddy set up his own camera. in the meanwhile, I explain how to frame the picture, use the camera settings ...all of it except pressing the button....
and he wins an amazing award for the picture (yeah - I know these are IMAGINARY scenarios)
is it my picture? or his?

anyway - just a small thought experiment between my friends and I.

Didn't a court recently rule that a selfie by a gorilla was owned by the gorilla? I don't know if the gorilla claimed ownership of the camera, but the gorilla is working the marketing rights by selling t-shirts on his website. An instructional book will be available on a popular e-book site in the near future, along with an autobiography.

Is the friend that took the award winning photo a gorilla? That seems to play a part.

Whomever presses the button is the owner of the photograph unless their is a contract between the two parties that says different.

Keeping in mind that laws differ from country to country, generally if you push the button the photo is yours. So in theory you would own the copyright on the photo in all 3 scenarios above according to US law. The second scenario played out here at last year's Academy Awards television broadcast. Ellen Degeneres, the presenter, decided to take a selfie with her camera phone posing with other film stars. In order to get more people in a male actor took the camera phone and reached out a bit further and took the "selfie". Ellen tweeted the photo and it became a bit of a sensation. It wss revealed the next day that the photo was to be used in some charitable fashion, but the rights belonged to the male actor who signed them over

interesting. in some ways it makes sense...and in others - a little less.
i wonder if other countries have dealt with the legal aspect of this question in different ways.
how do you prove that you pressed the button on someone elses camera though?

jra wrote in post #17228738
Whomever presses the button is the owner of the photograph

Yes, but here's the rub: how do you prove you pushed the button when it's somebody else's camera?

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #17228809
Yes, but here's the rub: how do you prove you pushed the button when it's somebody else's camera?

Thats what courts are for. In the vast majority of cases its never contested.

I remember a feature/discussion on the radio where it was said that, when somebody creates an artwork of significant value compared to the medium on which it is created, then the artist becomes owner of the artwork and its carrier.

Say Picasso makes a doodle on a tablecloth in a restaurant, then the value of the tablecloth is insignificant compared to the drawing, so the whole thing belongs to Picasso.

So, if you can prove the high value of the photo, then the memory card is yours.

May depend on in which country & jurisdiction you are, of course.

iowajim wrote in post #17228730
Didn't a court recently rule that a selfie by a gorilla was owned by the gorilla?

i think they ruled that the pictured wasn't taken by the photographer and thus the image belonged to no one and was in the public domain.

scriveyn wrote in post #17228840
I remember a feature/discussion on the radio where it was said that, when somebody creates an artwork of significant value compared to the medium on which it is created, then the artist becomes owner of the artwork and its carrier.

Say Picasso makes a doodle on a tablecloth in a restaurant, then the value of the tablecloth is insignificant compared to the drawing, so the whole thing belongs to Picasso.

So, if you can prove the high value of the photo, then the memory card is yours.

May depend on in which country & jurisdiction you are, of course.

in this case, one can argue - that the style is so unique that it would also impossible to copy or reproduce. one can equally argue that a photograph/or specifically a snap shot (like a selfie or in my example above, which usually has very little artistic value) can be more easily reproduced.

I worked for a newspaper for 17 years where the newspaper issued us equipment and the means (laptops and computers) to edit and submit images.

Being a highly unionised industry, the rule was the copyright was shared between photographer and newspaper. The photographer owned the 'artistic' copyright, the newspaper the 'material' copyright. Obviously a deal struck between union and newspaper.

Any images published outside of the media group, permission must be granted by the photographer and bylines given. Any images sold for publication, fees are shared 50-50 between photographer and newspaper and bylines given.

Around Xmas time each year, each photographer was given a 'copyright' cheque for images that may have slipped through the net. This ranged between $1500 and $2000. No one could work out how this figure was assessed as every photographer got the same amount.

is that the industry standard in photojournalism?

In which country? Law changes from country to country, and probably even within different regions of a country.

Generally speaking, whoever takes the photo owns it, unless contracted otherwise, or commissioned to take the photo.

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #17228809
Yes, but here's the rub: how do you prove you pushed the button when it's somebody else's camera?

pretty hard to prove positive it was you, but in the senario the OP posted, the owner of the camera would be in the picture so would have been pretty unlikely to have pressed the shutter...

'Whomever presses the button is the owner of the photograph' that's the rule we go by and sadly or happily it negates he or she who processed the final render.