Could Copyright Have Made A Difference In Custody Battle Over Kids Photos?
from the taker-of-the-photos... dept
The Grumpy Hacker writes in to let us know of a story about a couple in the midst of a divorce who went to court over who gets to own the family's photographs (found PopPhoto.com). Over the 21-year marriage, apparently, the family amassed 7,000 photos, and part of the dispute was over who got to keep them. The judge made the following decision:The husband gets 75% of the photos or three out of every four on each page of 75 photo albums, DeStefano wrote. His wife gets what's left.If you're wondering why not just make copies, apparently the couple had already paid over $2,000 to scan all the images and have them put onto a CD, but both sides were "unhappy with the quality and demanded originals." It seems like they could have just gone back to whoever scanned the images and demanded higher quality scans, but that's neither here nor there.
"The court finds that the husband was intricately involved with taking, compiling and cataloging the thousands of photos at issue," DeStefano wrote in a case in which the spouses were identified only by initials.
"He equated his collecting of photographs of family with the hobby of collecting rare books."
What struck me about this is you sort of wonder why no one brought up copyright. Technically, whoever took the photos most likely owned the copyright on those photos, and could claim that the photos were his or her right to own. This is one of the more annoying parts of copyright law, but whoever takes the photo often has a strong claim on the copyright, even if the camera is someone else's (remember that the next time you ask your friend -- or, I guess, spouse -- to take a photo for you). So, I would imagine that if the guy took most of the photos, he could just claim copyright on them and keep them from his ex-wife. In the meantime, though, perhaps we should be thankful that copyright was not used in this particular case -- even if the result seems a little silly. There are services that can duplicate photos (not just scan them), and it seems like this whole situation could have been solved without involving a court at all.
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Filed Under: copyright, divorce, photography
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Community Property
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Re: Community Property
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Being an "equitable distribution" state, and the property being marital, it is up to the court to decide how best to distribute the property between the soon to be ex's.
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Jeebus, the whole country has gone crazy.
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@6
nd
unless the pics make a set u may have hard time keeping htem entirely intact
and rulings like this are subjective to a judge menaing that just cause one does this you might find 4 doing the opposite
( waves to grammar nazi )
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But what about child custody?
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Where's the negatives?
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Where's the negatives?
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@ The Masnick
Did you mean scan them? Or is using Mason Jars for photo preservation just new technology?
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Sometimes ....
"What struck me about this is you sort of wonder why no one brought up copyright. Technically, whoever took the photos most likely owned the copyright on those photos, and could claim that the photos were his or her right to own."
Now, since you have mentioned this, what will happen is a simple unintended consequence. This will end up in the divorce lawyers arsenal of legal tricks. Making it that much easier for one spouse to hurt the other during divorce proceedings. Not that I mind, its yet another reason for people to rebel against current and future (ACTA, DEB, etc) copyright.
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Re: Sometimes ....
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