Wedding photos - i really need advice, is this right??

amy0807

Ok here goes,

I got married three years ago this year and had a wonderful quiet wedding with just close family..

Anyway, back to the point, we had a local photographer do our photographs and after the big day we chose the photos we wanted to buy and so did our family that attended and that was that..
Yesterday i spoke to my friend, she is getting married soon and asked which photographer we used, i told her and a while later, she said 'ohhh i love you wedding pictures on the website'..

I had no idea what she was talking about, but it turns out that all our wedding pictures are displayed on the photographers website (we did not agree to this) and not only that but they are available for anyone to buy, you just click on the photo you want and then pay through Paypal and the photo is sent to you!?!?!

I cannot get my head around this, i mean i know its likely no one will want pics of us (so why are they for sale). We had a quiet wedding with only close family, so for our personal, special day photos to be on display for the whole world to see and BUY has made me really cross..

Am i over reacting, or is what the photographer has done 'normal'?? I mean if i hadn't spoken to my friend yesterday, i would have no clue the photography company could be making money out of my wedding pictures and everyone else can see them!?!

Sorry, i hope all this makes sense, i just wanted advice on where to go from here really..

sarahlpage

That's awful!
I got married last year and I know that the photographer asked us if he could use our photos for advertising on his website - he got us to sign a form with legal jargon on it to say this was OK.
Also, on his website, right clicks are disabled - no-one can download or buy our pics, they're just to give you an idea of what he can do.
This sounds all wrong to me.
Have you tried talking to a solicitor at the citizens advice bureau?

amy0807

Thank you for taking the time to reply,
I haven't sort any legal advice yet, because i wanted to check that i wasn't just being silly and that this was normal for photographers to do.
It does say on the site 'not for copyright' but they are definitly available to buy, which we would definitly not have agreed to!!
I have just had another look on there and the 'right click' isn't even disabled, so anyone can right click and copy :-( :-( ..

Tozer

Hi

Did you talk to him about assigning the copyright to you? If not, the copyright in the photographs belongs to him so he is lawfully able to sell them.

Optimist

The copyright in such an instance is retained by the photographer. Your contract would have probably said something to the effect of you getting a single image of each photograph and you would have to pay extra to get more copies.

If it upsets you then you can always ask the photographer to remove the photographs they have no reason to upset you so might accede to your request but it is their choice.

esuhl

Sorry I can't offer any advice on what to do about finding your photos online, but...

sarahlpage wrote: »

Also, on his website, right clicks are disabled - no-one can download or buy our pics

If you can see images on a website, it is probably fairly easy to download them by disabling JavaScript or getting the URLs of the image in the HTML. Even if the images were embedded in some kind of Flash animation or other embedded file, you could take a screenshot and crop the image in MS Paint.

More info here, if you're interested: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/dont-disable-right-click/

Tozer

One thing that did just pop in my mind, whilst you do not own the copyright, there is an issue that you have "moral rights". One of these is the right to privacy in commissioned photographs.

This would prevent the photographer exhibiting the photographs although, strangely, not from selling them.

You can 'waive' moral rights so you would need to check the terms and conditions which you signed up to.

Ste_C

If it really upsets you that much just ask the photographer to remove them from sale. I'm sure he wouldn't mind and he probably has some sort of webs software which uploads all of his photographs rather than him hand picking them for sale.

Forget about rights, legal advice and all that nonsense. Just get on the phone and politely explain your issue and it'll probably be sorted there and then.

Did you talk to him about assigning the copyright to you? If not, the copyright in the photographs belongs to him so he is lawfully able to sell them.

Incorrect. To use photographs of people commercially, photographers need a signed model release form for each photo from the subject (i.e the OP).

As I said though, this is probably just a simple oversight which could be solved with a phone call. And as the OP says, I'm sure there isn't huge demand for photos of her from the public anyway so the photographer probably isn't missing out if he takes them down!

Tozer

Ste_C wrote: »

Incorrect. To use photographs of people commercially, photographers need a signed model release form for each photo from the subject (i.e the OP).

Sorry but no it is not incorrect. The Copyright Designs and Patents Act states that the 'author' is the owner of the copyright. These are called the 'economic rights'.

The only exception (again in the CDPA) is that when copyrighted work is created in the course of employment.

Releases and such like are used to get around possible infringement of 'moral rights'.

missimaxo

I would double check what contract you initially signed. We ask all our couples to sign a contract stating that we can use the images for any promotional purposes (which includes websites) and we give people permission to print when we issue image disks, but retain full copyright ourselves.

Most wedding photographers do something similar, and I bet before booking them you saw examples of previous weddings, either on their website or in sample albums. People would not book if they could not see what the photographer could do.

As for the option to purchase, again this is getting more and more popular, as it means if guests wish to purchase a print, they can without consulting the couple. We provide business cards at each wedding with the link to our site to do just this, however we do make it clear in advance to the couple that is what we are doing. On a small wedding like yours this may matter much but on larger weddings it means less hassle for the couple as the guests do not have to order prints through them.

I understand finding the prints upsets you, and as I say check what contract you signed. The "model release" referred to above is incoprorated into our contract as I have previously stated so you may have just forgotten or not realised it was there. If you did not sign a contract then they should remove the images.

Tozer

missimaxo wrote: »

IIf you did not sign a contract then they should remove the images.

Funnily enough if the OP did NOT sign a contract (and waive their moral rights to privacy in a commissioned photograph) then they cannot ask for the photos to be removed.