Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Hi All,

I was recently asked to take a photo of a fairly expensive piece of art. It was a large 20x10 foot or so work so I decided to stitch it. Either way, it came out great and I didn't really think anything of it.

I was asked and paid by the owner of this art to do this job and they were more than pleased with the result.

What I'm wondering now is, if the owner carelessly passes around this high resolution image to everyone and his uncle, who's on the hook for any intellectual property issues that may arise? I've seen a million and one Mona Lisa reproductions out there, but I just want to cover my ass in this situation.

any releases/documents signed?

Not yet, will be delivering a final copy tomorrow. Maybe i'll draft a custom release for this.

In Canada, as long as the sale/purchase has no terms and conditions associated with it, the owner has the right to do whatever they want with what is now their possession. This could include everything from throwing it out, burning it, painting over it or altering it, or photographing it and selling or otherwise distributing the photographs.

Even if he did not own the work, Canada is very liberal with regards to what are called 'derivative works' compared to other countries such as the US, so make sure that if you are researching this on the internet that you take appropriate Canadian references and case law into account and not assume that US references are valid in any way.

interesting

Extremely interesting.

Maybe I should sell some desktop wallpapers/prints hahaha

Interesting topic. I shoot our annual art exhibition at my work, and the situation is that we are producing a book which lists all of the artwork in the exhibition. All of the artwork is photographed - by me. And the images are property of the company, only for the use of publication. We do have an agreement that all of the artists sign. It states in the agreement that they are giving us permission to reproduce the likeness of the artwork for the purposes of promotion and publication for the art exhibition.

Yeah, it's an odd situation. In this case, I know for sure that the owner is looking to re-print on a smaller canvas for "personal use". Probably a family member or something wants a copy above their couch.