Fotografowanie a prawo

Answer the questions:

1. Is it possible to use images available on the Internet or in newspapers and signing under them?

2. What is copyrightcopyrightcopyright?

3. Are there legal rules governing when you can use the images available on the Internet?

Nowadays, photography should be considered omnipresent. First of all, this was due to the digital technologydigital technologydigital technology that makes it easy to perform, and secondly the Internet as the medium for publication. The digital camera, which is present in any mobile phone, in connection with the Internet and social media allows you to quickly register the image and put it on the web portal or s via MMS. However, it is worth knowing that the possibilities of taking photos, and especially their subsequent publication, and the use of already published photographs are regulated by specific law rules. These rules are worth to be known and used to not expose yourself to unpleasant consequences and not have to pay expensive penalties.

Photographs are protected by law, which was specified in the Act from 4th February 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights. The mentioned act first defines when the done work (including photography) is a copyright work and because of that, it is protected and secondly the Act delimited and defines the principles of personal copyright and property law.

As far as copyright is concerned, it can be assumed that each photograph is subject to its protection because, according to the statutory definition, the work is „the result of creative activity of an individual character fixed in any form” and during taking a picture, a photographer individually selects the composition and decides when to press the shutter button. In addition, the photographer usually processes or retouches the photo, which gives additional individual features to the work.

If we already know that our (or other people's) photography is a copyright work and is a subject of protection, it is necessary to explain what personal and property law is.

Personal copyright law concerns the creator of the work, who made it. It is very important that this right is inalienable, i.e. you can't change the information about author of the photo (whether it is free or you have to pay for it). So let us remember that if we have taken a picture, the personal law will always be ours and we can't give it to anyone. We will always be able to sign under this photo that we have made it. If the photo is published somewhere in a wider forum, we can require it to be signed with our name and artist's nickname. This law protects us from the fact that no one else can sign as the author of the picture we have taken. If someone violates this law by publishing our photo and signing himself as its author, we have the right to demand indemnitydemand indemnitydemand indemnity.

The second area of copyright protection is copyright property law, which sets the rules on which photo we can give or sell to someone and allow to use it (e.g. privately in the case of photos from family celebrations, in a newspaper or on the Internet portal). If we are going to allow someone to use our photo, it is worth to do it formally by signing a contract about the transfer of property copyrights. There are many possibilities and rules on which such permission can be given, which we professionally named as granting a license.

We can grant an exclusive license (the photo is only given to one recipient and we can't give it to anyone else) or a non‑exclusive license (we can give the photo to different recipients).

It is also worth determining whether the license we grant allows for further sub‑licensing (which is the most often in the case when our photograph is passed to a news agency that can pass it to different newspapers), or we disagree with such a sub‑licensing.

Another very important element of the license is defining the fields of exploitationfields of exploitationfields of exploitation, i.e. indicating how, when and where our photography can be used by the recipient and when it is forbidden. The most often we find a formula of permission to use „on all known fields of exploitation”, but we can also agree on the chosen usage.

In the contract, we should also indicate the time of granting the licensegranting the licensegranting the license, it means specify the time for which it is granted. We can of course grant a license for an indefinite period (ie „forever”), but we can also decide to grant a license for a shorter period of time (eg only for a year or two).

So let's remember that our photographs are protected by copyrightcopyrightcopyright and in the case of unauthorized usage of our image, we may report a ban on its use and even demand indemnitydemand indemnitydemand indemnity. However, this law also works the other way and if we use someone's photo without the author's agreement, we have to deal with unpleasant consequences.

Another issue is taking pictures of random people. Remember that you can only publish such a photo if you get the permission of the person in the picture to publish her/his image. It is a different situation when there is no one who is particularly distinctive, but there is a group of people, a gathering, a public party or a landscape. Then, the permission to publish photographs is not required. Individuals may be photographed without written permissionwritten permissionwritten permission only if they are public people performing their official duties.

Also remember to observe the prohibition to photograph places marked with the appropriate sign. If you see such a sign, do not take pictures even without the flash.

Summary:

Remember:

• photographs are protected by law,

• when using someone else's photo, obtain the author's permissionauthor's permissionauthor's permission and sign it with his/her name,

• pictures of public persons can only be done while they perform their official duties,

• respect the photo prohibition signprohibition signprohibition sign if it has been set.

Exercises

Glossary

Keywords

author's permissionauthor's permissionauthor's permission

copyrightcopyrightcopyright

written permissionwritten permissionwritten permission

granting the licensegranting the licensegranting the license

fields of exploitationfields of exploitationfields of exploitation