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FAQ Entry #514

Home > Support > Frequently Asked Questions > 514

This is a respond to a previously asked question about the A' Design Award and Competition. The full list of frequently asked questions can be accessed here.

#514: How do I prove that I am the original photographer of the photo? How do I prove that a photograph was taken by me?

In order to prove that you are the original photographer of the work , first, and foremost, you need to establish that you are truly the copyright holder from a legal standpoint; in almost all cases with a few exceptions, copyrights of photographs belong to photographer who took the photos and not the subject of the photographs nor the creator of the works or designs that are being photographed, that being said, in most cases, if you took the photo yourself, you are the photographer, thus the copyright holder from a legal standpoint, the exception to this rule is as follows; in some countries, when taking the photograph, if you were working for a company and if the photograph was taken during company time for a corporate project, then the copyright of the photograph belongs to the company or the institution that you were working for as a hire, and likewise if you had transferred or sold your rights to a third party or had an agreement to do so, depending on your country of residence, you may no longer be the copyright holder. Check your local laws or consult an intellectual property lawyer if you are not very sure. Once you are sure that you are the copyright holder of an image by means of being the photographer, then you may need some evidence to support your claims of being the original photographer of a copyright disputed image: (a) If you have the original photograph, especially in RAW file format, this could help prove that you are the original photographer, since only the original photographer would be expected to have the original image files. - Good to know: never send your RAW photos to a disputing party; the idea is that you have the RAW file and they do not have it and that is how you prove you are the photographer but if you send your RAW photo to disputing party, you loose a trump card. (b) If you have the original photograph, EXIF metadata may be used to prove that you are the original photographer, since the EXIF metadata contains many information such as camera model, camera settings, image metrics, date and time information, location information, and similar, and all these metadata may be taken as part of evidence when combined with other evidence; you may for example show that you had the camera that took the image, or you may show that you were at the location at the date the image was taken etc. (c) If you have additional associated photographs that were taken during the same shooting session but not yet published, these additional associated photographs from the same shooting session or series may help prove that you were the original photographer, since only the original photographer would be expected to have these unpublished associated image files or photographs. (d) If you have an image file that has more data than the publicly available image, such as an uncropped version of the image, such an image containing more data than the publicly available images may be useful evidence that you are the original photographer, since only the original photographer would be expected to have these unpublished image files or photographs that contain more data. Indeed, many photographers upload very slightly trimmed or cropped versions of their images for this particular reason. (e) In addition, eye-witness affidavits could help. Eye-witness affidavits are simple statements signed by third parties who have witnessed you taking the photo; imagine a piece of paper, where a witness states that you were the photographer, there is a signature and identification details of the person who is acting as the witness. (f) If there were models in your photograph, your model release forms may note you as the photographer and this may help prove that you are the original photographer.

Keywords: original photo, intellectual property, license, declaration, image license, photography license, photo license, rights, intellectual property rights, photograph, photography


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If you did not find your answer, please feel free to check the faq pages for more questions and answers. You will also want to check our webpage for details; thanks to our transparency policy, we document and publish everything.

 
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