Andy Harbin Photography
Capturing the beauty of The Cotswolds and surrounding areas

Firstly I must stress that the following is my understanding / interpretation of current UK law with respect to photography and is meant as a guide only. The only firm recommendation i can offer is 'if in doubt seek professional legal advice'.

Copyright:

In the absence of any contract or agreement stating otherwise, the person who took the photograph owns the copyright for that image. This is fundamental to photographic law and the key element here is "in the absence of any contract or agreement stating otherwise". This means that if you haven't agreed to anything or signed a contract to the contrary, you own the copyright. You do not need to declare or register your image(s) in any way. Copyright remains yours until you give it (assign it) to someone else.

As the owner of the copyright, only you can license the copying of your images (including the electronic copy and storage of digital images) and the issuing of your image to the public.

An exception to this (hinted at earlier) is where you are employed by another and a contract existis whereby you agreed to assign copyright of your images to your employer or third party. In the situation of full time employment (where an employer pays tax and national insurance contributions on your behalf), the employee does not own copyright on work created during the normal course of their employment unless there is an agreement to the contrary.

Permitted Uses:

'Fair Dealing' under UK law allows the copying of copyrighted ,aterial under certain circumstances without the need for prior permission. These generally cover; publicising work for sale, copying for research purposes, educational use, copying for review, submission in court as evidence.

Duration of Copyright:

The copyright of an image either taken in the EU or by an EU nationality photographer is 70 years from the end of the first year inwhich that person died. This is applicable to work created after 1st Aug, 1989.

Assignment of Copyright:

The owner of the copyright can pass on (assign) the rights of an image to another but should only do so after careful consideration. To sell the copyright outright requires the owner's agreement in writing. It should be remembered that once copyright is re-assigned to another party you will have no claim on money made from further sales. Protect and maintain your copyright, unless you are offered a good price for it!

It is important not to confuse owning an image with owning the copyright to that image; the first does not mean the latter. Owning a print of an image gives the owner no rights to that image, even if that owner happens to be the subject of the image (in the case of a portrait).

Moral Rights:

These remain with the originator of the work regardless of who currently owns the copyright. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 defines these rights as follows...

• The right to be identified as the author of the work (also known as Paternity Right).

• The right to object to false attribution of the work.

• The right to protect the integrity of the work.

The first two items basically allow the author to be credited with the original work and prevent another from claiming authorship. The third item, also described as "the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work", is most relevant today where images can be digitally 'manipulated' almost without trace.

It should be noted that the right to be credited only works if it is 'asserted' and should never be just assumed. The use of statements such as "moral rights asserted" or "all rights reserved" on the back of images, as meta tags in digital images or as footers on websites are all legally sufficient 'assertions'.

Once-Off Rights:

If a picture is purchased for publication in a calendar, magazine, newspaper etc, generally this is for "once-off re-production rights". This allows the buyer to use the image only once. The advantages of this are two-fold; firstly yo retain the copyright and secondly you can sell the same image again, providing the new buyer is not in direct competition with any previous buyers.

Calendar markets generally stipulate a period during which they retain full calendar rights to the image. Generally a year, sometimes more; during this period you may not sell the images to another calendar producer.

When it comes to selling your images on again you must first check the clearance of that image with earlier buyers to ensure any previously agreed rights have expired.

Protect Your Work:

These rights are all well-and-good but mean little if they are not asserted. There are a number of simple things you can do to assert your rights and protect your work.

• When giving images to a third party, put into writing the uses for which those images can be used. Also detail that you are to be contacted before any other uses are to be considered.

• Ensure your full contact details are included with every image you give to another. Write these on the back of printed images or include them in the meta data of digital files. Photoshop and other programs will let you do this.

• Assert your copyright on each image using the © symbol, followed by your name. You may want to add a year if you wish. If displaying images on a website, one © reference at the bottom of each page will suffice.

• Images displayed on a website should only be of a suitable size. For example, the main images on this site are only 400 pixels wide. To obtain a good quality print an image should be printed at 300dpi (dots per inch), that means my 400 pixel wide image would only be the size of a postage stamp! Not worth stealing.

• If uploading your images to a social media website use the text description to assert your copyright. Also consider using a watermark to do the same; this can be done easily using Photoshop or other photo editting program.

Please don't be parranoid by all of this, following these simple steps will deter the vast majority of people from copying your images. However, if someone does and you want to take further (legal) action these steps will help your case enormously.