Expert: Kacey Cahill - 5/3/2009

Question
Hi Kacey!
A personnel in a corporate company engaged a design agency to take
pictures of it's office space. Design agency took bad quality pictures (colours,
composition, etc) and send the corporate company BIG invoice (flight tickets,
hotel stay, photography charges, etc). Top management of company was
shocked to see invoice and bad quality pictures. The design agency insisted
on the copyrights to photos taken of the office interior.  Top management is
still shocked with charges and terms.  

Can the corporate company (1) own the copyrights of those photos? Being
the company paying for shooting of own office space.  (2) get agency to
reshoot to an acceptable quality?  (3) not pay due to no knowledge of (no
copyright) terms before agency proceed?  (4) The personnel who engaged
that agency should take responsibility of acquiring full information/terms and
approvals before letting agency proceed?

Thanks!!!

Answer
Jac,

The answers to many of your questions will be found in the contract that governs that services provided by the design firm.  For instance, who owns that copyright? Under US law, the copyright is owned by the person (in this case) that took the picture unless that person transferred the copyright.  If there is no written agreement that says the company owns the copyright then the photographer (or the agency that employed the photographer) probably does own the pictures.  That is not to say, however that there is no other clause in the agreement that may help you -- like you get an exclusive, perpetual license to those photos, etc.  
All other questions about payments, requiring reshoots, etc.  would be answered in the contract as well.  If there is no satisfactory term in the contract talking about quality or reshoots, etc.  then you would need to argue that essentially they denied you the benefit of the service for which they were hired -- that is, the pictures were soooo bad, it is as if they did not show up for the job at all.

If you need help with analyzing the contract, etc., this is an area of law in which I have a great deal of experience.  Please visit my Site for information about me and my experience.

I hope this helps, and good luck to you.

Kind regards,

Kacey Cahill
www.kaceylaw.com
kcahill@kaceylaw.com