Published June 28, 2009 | 
Under the law it‘s the person who takes the photo that owns the copyright, except for the following exceptions:
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If the photographer is the employee of a company and taking the photo as part of his\her jobs, or as an employee of a company they are instructed to take the photos. In this situation the photographer will be acting on behalf of his/her employer so the company the photographer works for owns the copyright.
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If there is an agreement that assigns copyright to another party.
In all other cases, the photographer retains the copyright. If the photographer has been paid for his work the payment will be for the photographer?s time and typically an allocated number of prints. The copyright to the photos will remain with the photographer and any reproduction without permission would be an infringement of copyright.
I bought a few Broken Camera’s in a Box of Junk at an Auction from a Pawn Broker’ Shop back in 1986. There was a Roll of film stuck in one. I developed it and now i have been told i have no right to publish the pictures which are from 1959-1960 as the Copyright belongs to an unknown Photographer or their heirs who sold the Camera i bought. This is the reply i got from
The fact that no-one can now prove that they took the photos makes the rightsholder difficult to identify, but it does not change the fact that the copyright does not pass to the person who has the photographs/negatives in their possession. This makes the photographs you hold “orphan works”, that is works which are still (probably) in copyright and where the rightsholder cannot be identified. To exploit these works by publishing them, either in book format or on the internet, requires the permission of the rightsholder OR a due diligence search to show that the rightsholder is not identifiable.
Kind regards
Samantha Holman
Executive Director
Irish Copyright Licensing Agency
25 Denzille Lane
Dublin 2
Tel: +353 1 662 4211
Fax: +353 1 662 4213
http://www.icla.ie