Wedding Photography Copyright Explained

The first thing to know about wedding photography copyright is that your photographer owns the copyright to all the photos he takes at your wedding.

This means it's illegal for you to copy, scan or reproduce a photograph without the permission of the photographer.

Copyright has always been a hot issue, with photographers inventing and companies offering, more and more creative ways of combating copyright abuse. Some photographers have given up trying to fight it and offer all negatives or digital files as part of a package.

This has advantages and disadvantages for the wedding couple and the photographer:

The couple...

...get all the negatives and files and so are in charge of their own printing. With online services like Snapfish, they can also create digital albums, calendars, etc.

But, it is usually only wedding photographers at the lower end of the market that are willing to supply all their images on disc. They may just be a part-time photographer looking to make an extra few hundred pounds at the weekend, which might have repercussions on the quality of their work and customer service.

The photographer...

...has to find a way to meet the demand of supplying digital files. This may mean he has to sacrifice any possible repeat sales on his photos, but this could justify him charging more per image. This creates the risk that his work may not be presented to a very high standard, which could reflect badly on him.

A professional photographer will use a professional lab for printing - one that has exacting colour management standards.

(If you've ever made prints from a digital camera, have you ever noticed that the colours look different to how they do on a computer screen? That's what colour management is - making sure photos look the same whether on screen or in print).

So his prints would most likely be a higher quality than a high street lab.

As more and more people become familiar with digital imaging, professional photographers are forced to raise their game. Their work has to stand out from what the average wedding guest can achieve. And when it comes to wedding photography copyright, they'll have to come up with creative ways of supplying digital files.

If you want to have control over printing photographs, here are some questions you could discuss with your wedding photographer:

• Would you be willing to supply a disc of low resolution images I could upload to Facebook/Myspace/Bebo etc.?
• Could I just choose individual images to be supplied on disc, not all of them?
• Could I have all the images on disc, on the specific condition that I only produce prints for myself, not any friends, relatives or other wedding guests?
• Could I have all the images on disc after a certain time period?

For more infomation, see what the UK Intellectual Property Office say on the subject.

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