This could get heated...to watermark or not to watermark?

Certainly in the UK it is possible to assign any/all rights (including copyright) over to another individual, the only stipulation is that it has to be in writing and agreed by both parties. So a clearly laid out contract that included an appropriate clause transferring ownership of rights would be enforceable.

As a photographer I would be happy to sign such a contract at the right price, but I've yet to deal with a client that was prepared to pay that price. So far all my clients have been happy with a negotiated set of rights that fit their purpose. Why would the client want to pay for more rights than than they actually need?

Cheers,
Ady

It todays world of electronic imaging it is nearly impossible to protect your image. During the days of film and print images it was a much easy thing to control, but even then I had images reproduced without my permission. If you post your images on the web or social media sites you just gave them away. It doesn't really concern me that much anymore.

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Originally Posted by William W

I know of no impediment to making such an assignment of copyright in said contract: and I don't understand why such an assignment of copyright would make said contract, void.

WW

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This is very common practice; in the popular music genre, very few if any of the composers from the first half of the 20th century are still alive. They copyrighted their work, and now that they are dead, another entity (corporation, family member, friend) now holds the copy rights. Apparently the "right" of the copy can be transferred.

There is an extremely long list that includes such notables as Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein. The copyright to their music obviously must have been transferred via a legal contract, as anyone attempting to use their works without authorization and/or paying a fee could/would be sued in a court of law.

Glenn

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Originally Posted by jad

It todays world of electronic imaging it is nearly impossible to protect your image. During the days of film and print images it was a much easy thing to control, but even then I had images reproduced without my permission. If you post your images on the web or social media sites you just gave them away. It doesn't really concern me that much anymore.

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And this is precisely the point I made in post 33; the photographers I noted are not amateurs like many of us; they earn their livelihoods from photography - and their works are being used illegally.

And they know it, and they are having difficulties stopping it.

The only way one can truly protect ones work is to not put it up on the 'net, or to completely obliterate it with some sort of degrading mark. Putting something in the corner is easy to avoid, simply crop the image a bit.

Of course using another person's work is illegal, but attempting to prosecute such use is pretty well futile.

Glenn

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Originally Posted by Ady

Certainly in the UK it is possible to assign any/all rights (including copyright) over to another individual, the only stipulation is that it has to be in writing and agreed by both parties. So a clearly laid out contract that included an appropriate clause transferring ownership of rights would be enforceable. . . .

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-AND-

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Originally Posted by Glenn NK

This is very common practice; in the popular music genre, very few if any of the composers from the first half of the 20th century are still alive. They copyrighted their work, and now that they are dead, another entity (corporation, family member, friend) now holds the copy rights. Apparently the "right" of the copy can be transferred.

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Thanks for that added info: I am still interested in a response and clarification from Urbam Domeiej.

WW

'The time has come, the walrus said to talk of many things; of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot and whether to watermark or not.'