When is the photographer not the photographer?

[Kym]

It would be an interesting test case if it ever went to court.

No it would not, it has been done to death in regards to the © Act 1968 etc.

[arthurking83]

While it may be arguable that the pusher of a button could be labelled 'a photographer', I'd say the owner of the camera and hence the copyrighter of the resultant products (if copyright is clearly set in camera) should be the rightful claimant of image ownership.

Afterall, a simple button pusher could be labelled as a temporary/casual/volunteer assistant, and also come under the assistants clause.

Legally it's the shutter presser in the first instance.
Re: the pro/assistant cases, that would be covered by an employment relationship.
Next time use a wireless remote.

PS: As a camera club judge I would have to DQ the entry as well.

If LuLu set up the scene, owns the camera and has asserted copyright to the images via the camera .... but Betty presses the button, Betty will own LuLu's copyrighted image?


I wouldn't have DQ'ed the winner.



@ Bob .. should have kept the broom instead.
(great setup tho!)

[fillum]

The conundrum posed by Bob has nothing to do with copyright, it's about 'authorship' - who created 'the work'? You could certainly argue that the club member who conceived and set up the shot is the 'photographer', however if I happened to walk up and take an almost identical image at the same time would I not be the photographer in that case? Is that somehow different to the 'assistant' releasing the shutter? Greg Crewdson, whose images sell for tens-of-thousands of dollars a pop, doesn't operate the camera. I assume that he's considered to be 'the photographer' in these cases, although his images would probably be DQ'd if he tried to get them into his local camera club comp . I think most comps have a clause about the image being "your own work" so I guess it comes down to whether someone else releasing the shutter is interpreted as "your own work".

Copyright might also be questionable in the situation posed by Bob (although not part of the original post). My understanding is that where no agreement exists to the contrary, the person who presses the shutter-release is the copyright owner. So copyright ownership would come down to how the 'assistant' was engaged to take the photo.



Cheers.

[bobt]

Hi Bobt , I guess you would call this photo manipulation , not a photograph , but you might like to exhibit it at the Sydney Biennale Art Festivel next time it is on. This artist has done exactly the same thing.
He obviously pinched your idea!

You just can't keep a good idea down! I think this image won me something in our club "creative" competition ....... but I think making it was more fun than winning anything. 8*)

[geoffsta]

I tend to agree with the remote shutter being the photographer. During lightning storms I set the camera up, the set the remote to take 10 second shots, with a 2 second space. Then I virtually sit down have a cuppa, and until the storm finishes.
Therefore in all the definitions above. The remote is the Photographer. I as the assistant setup the tripod, setup the settings and the let the remote do the rest.

P.S. In saying that. I have to press the start button on the remote.

[Shane H]

I'm not a legal expert. Any thing here is a matter of opinion. My opinion? Neither the Act nor the Regulations use the term photographer. The Act refers to authors. Section 10 of the Copyright Act defines the author as "in relation to a photograph, means the person who took the photograph." The person who pressed the button may be considered the copyright holder as usually the 1st copyright holder is the author (exlusions apply). A Copyright Council fact sheet states that in some situations there is provision in the Act for joint copyright.

In regards to a competition, I would not consider it to be her work and as such, I feel she should have been disqualified.

Cheers
Shane

[AVALANCHE]

It is her photo.

Whoever presses the shutter is irrelevent. The person with the vision to create an image that is relevent and says something to the viewer is the photographer. I fail to see how she could be disqualified since she set up the shot and necessary camera settings for whoever she had take the shot.

[Kym]

I wouldn't have DQ'ed the winner.

Yet we are taught at the judging school to DQ in this case, and that is because of the (c) act

[arthurking83]

Yet we are taught at the judging school to DQ in this case .....

Remember the first rule of photography!!

Rules are meant to be broken!

[s1l3nt]

This is one that is dependant on personal opinion for me. There are many cases where I use the automated shooting capabilities of my camera, does this than make me not the photographer? As someone earlier said I had to start the shots being taken atleast?

As for this case, I can see why judges are required to disqualify a photographer based on the fact that technically the shutter was pressed by another person (not an automated system). Based on this, I would agree with judges disqualifying on this basis.

Lesson learnt, remote shutter is your third hand?

[jev]

IMHO, the person pushing the shutter-button is just a (living) remote control in this case

[bcys1961]

Yet we are taught at the judging school to DQ in this case, and that is because of the (c) act

So , just remember , if YOU feature in the photo YOU submit to the upcoming Family photo ( Quarterly Competition) , you used a remote or self timer , you did not have someone press the button for you !

[Allie]

Everybody interested in this conversation ... please invest in a very inexpensive remote (or learn how to operate your cameras timer) to avoid disappointment and disqualification.

This is a very interesting discussion, thanks BobT!

[bcys1961]

It's getting a bit zen!
"If a photographer in a forest doesn't press the button , but no judge is there to see them not press the button , did they not press the button?"

[arthurking83]

It's getting a bit zen!
"If a photographer in a forest doesn't press the button , but no judge is there to see them not press the button , did they not press the button?"

I think this conundrum depends on one thing .. did the button willingly agree to not be pressed .. or was it somehow coerced into not being pressed.
I think the button knows it's place in the world and by it's very description has accepted it's role in life that it must be pressed.
Almost to the point where it demands to be pressed.
But if the situation arises where it might not be pressed for any reason, the button's purpose comes into question.
Therefore an existentialist conundrum may arise for the button if it's purpose has been nullified. What will be it's purpose now.
How will the button react once it realises that it may not have to be pressed. Will it rebel against it's regular subjugator? Will it seek a new subjugator(s). Will it completely refuse to be pressed ever again.
It may even wait until a judge passes by to allow it's operator access again.


Alternatively, while the photographer may have not pressed the button (in the non judgmental forest situation above), there exists the situations whereby a randomly accessed thirdparty may have been sequestered to perform the duties of button pressing.
Also, is this topical enigma restricted to only forest areas, or may be it be transferable to other places of photographic importance(ie. seascapes, deserts, etc) and ... does a single lone tree standing in a clear felled plain come under the descriptive umbrella of a forest, or is it a totally new genre of paradox.

I ask these questions simply as a contingency plan if the situation ever arises where my inexpensive remotes(all 5 of them) ever fail concurrently whilst I'm out and about AND I stumble across a judge doing their job.
Now that I know how ruthless these judges are, I'd like to be better prepared

[bcys1961]

I think this conundrum depends on one thing .. did the button willingly agree to not be pressed .. or was it somehow coerced into not being pressed.
I think the button knows it's place in the world and by it's very description has accepted it's role in life that it must be pressed.
Almost to the point where it demands to be pressed.
But if the situation arises where it might not be pressed for any reason, the button's purpose comes into question.
Therefore an existentialist conundrum may arise for the button if it's purpose has been nullified. What will be it's purpose now.
How will the button react once it realises that it may not have to be pressed. Will it rebel against it's regular subjugator? Will it seek a new subjugator(s). Will it completely refuse to be pressed ever again.
It may even wait until a judge passes by to allow it's operator access again.


Alternatively, while the photographer may have not pressed the button (in the non judgmental forest situation above), there exists the situations whereby a randomly accessed thirdparty may have been sequestered to perform the duties of button pressing.
Also, is this topical enigma restricted to only forest areas, or may be it be transferable to other places of photographic importance(ie. seascapes, deserts, etc) and ... does a single lone tree standing in a clear felled plain come under the descriptive umbrella of a forest, or is it a totally new genre of paradox.

I ask these questions simply as a contingency plan if the situation ever arises where my inexpensive remotes(all 5 of them) ever fail concurrently whilst I'm out and about AND I stumble across a judge doing their job.
Now that I know how ruthless these judges are, I'd like to be better prepared

You have learnt well grasshopper!

[RJD]

I guess this question is a bit like the line of digital processing v photo manipulation.... it's quite blurry at times. How often do we hear "that's photoshopped" and it's a negative connotation? Yes, it's been processed through photoshop (or similar) otherwise we would have nothing to show of RAW shots, that doesn't necessarily mean it is not a true representation of what we photographed.

Back to the original question, I think it could come down to the settings. If the camera was on auto settings, the person who presses the shutter would be the photographer capturing someone else's idea for composition, as there has been no personal input to control the image. One would assume this was not the case in this particular instance. We all know that 'photograph' pretty much translates to painting with light - so in my mind the photographer is the one who arranges the settings to capture the light. It is their knowledge and understanding of light and their equipment that has dictated what will be captured. The idea for the composition would possibly come under intellectual property and looked at as a separate issue.

In the example michaellvx gives, that is harder again. Yes, you set up the camera for the shot you wanted - of the lunar eclipse. The shots your daughter actually captured were different as they contained the planes, therefore she judged the timing to get her own take on the composition, albeit one of chance to some degree.

Ultimately, if this were tested under law it would probably boil down to who had the more convincing lawyer, or who had the most money to drag it out