Rights of owner of object photographed

[Michael Chapman]

A photographer has taken pictures of my boat which he sells.

As the owner of the boat (the only thing in the photo apart from the sea), do I have any rights at all?

E.g.
1) to use the photographs for my own use

2) to put them on my web site

3) to link to them from my web site

[Swampy]

Hi, Michael! Welcome to RTP!

I'm not a lawyer, but my first gut reaction to your question is:

1: NO, the photos belong to the photographer
2: MAYBE: You would need the photographer's permission or at least give him photo credit.
3: YES

I'm operating on a premise that if I stand on a public street and take pictures of cars going by, the owners of those cars do not have any rights to the photos. Or if I stopped my car on a country road and took photos of a farmer's cows, he cannot claim any kind of ownership or rights to the pictures.

[olivierphoto]

I am not a lawyer either, but I am a photographer and what I have read about property rights is confusing. It seems that the more the property is identifiable with its owner (i.e. people can tell that it's your boat, as opposed to a generic "boat") the more rights you have as the owner and that the photographer would be responsible for asking YOU to sign a release form. There's a photo attorney blog out there you should google for more info.

Have you contacted the photographer? I would think that it would be common courtesy for the photographer to allow you any and all uses that do not infringe upon his/her marketing of the prints.

[Doug Nelson]

Unless you had the boat in your garage or at least under a tarp, and he snuck in or uncovered it, "no" on 1 and 2. There's no expectation of privacy on the water, and objects have no inherent right to privacy as people do. 3 will always be yes, though some consider it rude without permission.

[ktg222]

Isn't the TransAmerica tower in San Francisco copyrighted? Are there not other private buildings that are copyrighted and cannot be photographed and published? I don't mean to infer this boat is a copyrighted object.

k

[Doug Nelson]

Copyright and right to privacy are two very different things. Copyright does not affect your right to photograph, but could affect possible usages of that photo (almost always involving money). Any publicly viewable object is fair game to photograph, as long as it doesn't affect national security or have your agreement to their rules (ie: if you buy a sports or museum ticket). Usages of those photos, however, gets a bit more complicated.