Digital BW, The Print

Dragonfly Imaging & Printing wrote:

>IMO, the photographer and the art director would likely share credit 
>for the shot. 
>
Wrong.  Standard law is it resides with the individual who fixes the image.

>Reproduction rights would likely remain with the art 
>director's company, since the photographer was 'hired'.
>  
>
If it's an explicit written contractual work-for-hire, yes.  But that 
still doesn't make the art director either the creator or the copyright 
holder.  Then the Art Director is simply another work-for-hire.  
(UNLESS, the copyright holder explicitly transfers that right.)

>This is similar to artists who want to reproduce their commissioned 
>works. We've been advising them to get signed "reproduction rights" 
>when they work for pay.
>  
>
I make sure I have reproduction for portfolio or personal advertising 
purposes written into EVERY work-for-hire agreement I do. For movie work 
I always demand an appropriate credit in both the film and, often. 
whenever an image is used in print as well. If the client doesn't like 
it, they are always free to find someone else.

PS - Ask the Art Director if the image has his/her name in the 
copyright... That usually ends such drivel.  Art directors are NOT 
legally or figuratively the creators of the images.  They are NOT the 
creating artist.  If they were, copyright ownership would reside with 
them, as it does with every other "creating artist" in the absence of a 
work-for-hire.  It doesn't.  End of story.

Feel free to forward my email to the benighted Art Director in question.


 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
and  the Multiverse's largest Canon printer User  Community at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon-printers
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"