Who owns the Copyright ? Photographer, Model or the client ?

An interesting incident happened yesterday. Just like always, me and few friends gathered at a nearby restaurant for the dinner after a photo exhibition held by local photographer. I noticed that one of our photographer friend was not in mood. Once we set for the dinner and cracked some jokes, I asked him is everything ok ? Then he shared a very interesting ( tragic for him ) thing happened to him. Let me share it with you.

My photographer friend was hired by a local showroom vala for one day photo shoot. The showroom owner had negotiated a lot with my friend to cut down his fees and arrange free model and promised that he would hire them again and pay more once his business grows. My photographer friend had hire one good looking model from the city on low pay stating the whole shoot is low budget shoot. The model had agreed.

Once the shoot was over, my friend was paid the small amt which was finalized mutually after the showroom owner's cry story. Two weeks after the shoot, my friend found his photographs in big hoardings by that showroom, in full page ads of all big news papers and every where. My friend realized that the showroom had no money only him but spent huge amount on publicity using his creative work. Initially he was told that those pics are taken for showroom's official website only. Having realise that he was fooled by his client, my friend uploaded and shared those pics on stock photography website thinking, he should sell those images through stock photo websites and make money from his photography work which was not rightly paid by his client.

As no brand name was visible in photograph, my friend went on using pics. He also sold the usage right to local ad agencies with whom he had tied up  Now, the agency, not aware of whole story, used the image for its client who is competitor of my photographer friend. They published the ad in local magazines. That showroom owner who fooled my friend, now felt cheated seeing the same photographs being used by his competitor. He called my friend and threatened to sue him. Now, on the other part, that model who was paid little amount, got furious after knowing that her photographs are being used by multiple showroom owners for big publicity campaign. Now she felt cheated. She thought my friend and showroom wala exploited her. Now she demands 3 times money of his work from my friend and also spreading this story in the photography and modelling community here. As I am not much into gossiping I could not smell it from industry peers but when I come to know it from the hero himself ;) I laughed and felt bad at a same time.

I told him following things :

- The first mistake you did was to do a low budget shoot for a future promise of  good work, without signing such contract.
- The other mistake you committed was not having patience and start selling images even without talking to your smart client. Yes I use the smart client and not fraud client. He smartly used him and paid what he had committed. And He has not yet said no to my friend for high budget photography next time.

- The other mistake he committed was of not taking model into confidence  If his client cheated and he felt like getting compensation for it, the other stake holders also deserved the same. I adviced him to share the complete story to that model and pay her what ever she wants. Because you are in the business where it takes years to make name and you lose it so easily only for few mistakes.

This case leads to the question that...... Who owns the Copyright ? Photographer, Model or the client ?

- Let me tell you there can not be one perfect answer for this. Let me explain.

Normal Case :

- When client reaches you to certain kind of work, you give him quote for the work you are exclusively gonna do for him. You hire model and makeup artists for that particular shoot. Client pay you the predecided amount, you make payments to model and other stake holders, and client uses the images for the promotion and branding of his products and services. Client can not sell those image and make money from those photographs. And same applies to the photographer, model.

A case where Client holds exclusive copyrights and can make any type of used of it. Can sell them too.
- When someone who does not want pics for himself but want to run photo agency or something similar, he may hire photographer and models, pay them awesome amount as the client is going to sell those photographs commercially. The photographers and models won;t mind untill they are paid the right amount for such shoots.

A case where model holds exclusive copyrights and can make any type of used of it. Can sell them too.
- When it is case of celebrity portfolio shoot. Any celebrity would hire photographer and have exclusive rights over his/her photographs. Of course the photographer will be paid good enough.

A case where Photographer holds the exclusive copyrights over images.
- This would happen, when photographer is paying high amount to model and will charge less to his client. many cases a client who wants 5000k  shoot done for 1000, would be happy to do so. The photographer will do so as he will be paid money by client which he can use to cover modeling cost and then have exclusive right over the images and try to sell them on stock photography websites.

A case where Photographer and Model jointly share copyrights.
-This is a rare case. I know a photographer in our city who had tied up with 4 models. They together come out with different concept, arrange a shoot and make out pics and put them for sell on stock photography websites. Whatever is earned from the images is equally distributed amongst all.

Btw, My friend is now less worried and have asked the model to correct her mistake and spread the news that she was not cheated ;)