Copyright Law For Images- Canadians Finally Win Battle
All working photographers in Canada that do any paid or commissioned jobs, have scored a big victory in the realm of copyright. The long awaited Copyright Act amendment was voted in yesterday and it finally gives photographers the rights they deserve. If you are Canadian, you need to be aware of this, and even if you live elsewhere it’s in your best interest to know the copyright law for images in your country.
Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators (CAPIC) copyright head André Cornellier said in an email to members,
The principle of protecting photographers’ ownership rights started 65 years ago by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who founded Magnum with Robert Capa and David Seymour. Magnum assured that a photographer’s image belonged to the photographer and not to the commissioner of the work.
In Canada, all other artists have already owned the copyrights to their work and thanks to this new law, Canadian photographers, albeit the last in the industrialized world, now have all legal rights to their images.
The main issues of Canadian copyright laws for images
- The existing copyright law was so old, dating back to the early 1900′s with very few amendments, that it didn’t recognize photography as an art form or any of the newer technologies created since that time. It was long overdue for an update and it’s been a long and bumpy road to get here.
- Many photographers in Canada aren’t even aware that until today, they did NOT own the copyright on their own images done for a paying client. Up until now when a client hired a photographer, the client actually owned the rights to the images as stated in the Copyright Act. As I said above, when the law was created photography was not considered an art form it was a service and therefore the customer was given the rights to the images. So photography was different than all other art forms such as painting, music, and writing. Now we are finally included in that group and have the rights to our own images.
- Even if you had a contract with the client they could dispute it in court and likely they’d win. I’m not sure if this new law is retroactive to include any past jobs or how that works. If you are a working photographer in Canada it might be in your best interest to find out. If you don’t have a contract stating that you own the copyright for images you take, I highly suggest you get one.
- This is a huge win and improvement for all photographers in Canada. Both the CAPIC and PPOC (The Professional Photographers of Canada) organizations have been working towards this goal for years, thanks to them for all their hard work on behalf of all photographers in Canada.
“Photographers will be the first owner of copyright in their photographs even in the case of commissioned photographs” – as quoted from the new Act.
Two Articles on the New Copyright Law For Images
CAPIC – new Canadian Copyright Laws for Images
Further reading and references
An introduction to the Canadian Copyright Act
Application for Copyright Registration
Action Steps
Step one: open bottle
Step two: pour a glass of wine
Step three: drink it and toast to success!
Step four: add your comments below please. Tell me your thoughts on this news.
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Thats awesome news. Thanks for sharing.
It’s a positive change but it will be interesting to see how it will change anything in practice.
@David yes I agree!
@Stephen, yes time will tell for sure. But at least now the law is on our side. Previous to this if you went to court, contract or not, you could very well lose based on the law.
That is good news….
Thank you for informing us.
Thank you for the people who worked hard on this.
I greaves my hear to know how the photographers of our next door nieghbors were treated. I thought because of all the changes in recen years all over the world all things had also changed for every one. I live in the US and have enjoyed the knowlege that I own the copyright of all that I do for my life +fifty years beyond, it goes to my family for the fifty years after my death.
I am a very great advocate of knowing your copyright laws. Almost went head to head with a former coworker at Walmart who could not understand why the developer couldn’t give permission to repring. She was suposed to know copyright. I told her to go online and look it up. I shudder when I come across people like her.
I am glad to hear that things arer picking up for all in Canada. Our old laws were bad, but I think we have always had our copyrights.
Yes Jose, they put in a lot of work on it! They do deserve thanks.
Margaret – even though copyright in the US is much better it doesn’t stop people from not knowing the laws, or knowingly breaking them. I had one “friend” of mine (who is now blocked) on Facebook that decided he wanted to “help” me promote my photography business. So rather than share or comment on my work, what does he do? Downloads a bunch of my images from my albums and uploads them as his. Then all he says on the album is “some great photography” in them but no tag, not even my name, no link, no watermarks. If he had shared they’d go right to my page, now they look like his images.
When I asked him to remove them he refused and blocked me. Then he blocked my husband after yelling at us both (talking in ALL CAPS) and telling us how the internet works and if I didn’t want my images downloaded I shouldn’t have put them on the internet in the first place.
Hello?!
Just because something is on the internet does not mean it is free domain for anyone! So, anyway, just because the law is now on our side and yours doesn’t mean we’re safe from people just taking what they want. I don’t subscribe to the fear of having people steal my images, and if they want them bad enough they’ll get them no matter what I do. So I just let them go and make sure my logo is on them, and copyright info in the metadata. You could take it another step and register all your images with the US copyright office, and get Digimarc to track them online but honestly I don’t have time or money for that and what would come of it if I found some stolen images anyway? Best case scenario I’d get a couple hundred bucks.
Pick your battles I say.
Copyright is still outdated, even after this recent ruling, and the vast majority of people who discuss and debate it don’t really understand what it’s about either. I still think copyright is too broad and too complex and it will still be in the hands of lawyers and judges to decide who owns the rights to something.
I’m happy that copyright in regards to photography is much better defined, but I still think there’s a long way to go.
Agreed Craig!