Posted By Dave Merchant That's what safetyphoto.co.uk is doing, and bear in mind it's not as simple as you make out - a photo you've taken on private (including company) premises during a time you were being paid by your employer is not usually yours to give away, even if you had permission to take it and you try and remove logos. Part of both the copyright and exploitation right will belong to your employer and the premises owner / persons within the image EVEN if they aren't identifiable.

Posted By Ron Hunter Peter, everything and anything you produce or create on company time is the property of your Employer - standard employment contract term.

Posted By Peter Tanczos Stricly speaking if you are taking photos and you are publishing them, you do need to get permission from the subjects (if they are recognisable). In the case of Facebook, I'm not sure if this constitutes "publishing" or not (It would depend on your privacy settings I imagine). Essentially, if you see your face in a published photograph, they should have got your permission to publish it. You must then contact those concerned and state that they've used your image without permission. To have any sort of claim this must be done when you first became aware of it, otherwise you will be deemed to have waived your rights. This is why they pay models and get them to sign release forms. Retrospective judgements on already published photos will take into account the use (and profitability) of the photo and are generally not sufficiently high enough to justify sueing

Posted By Luke. Stupid question - if you were to block out the company logo and the faces (they generally tend to be focused shots on a certain safety issue) then where is the law then? You are not selling pictures and there is no comeback on the company if they are not recognisable?

Posted By Glen Coe In part you are right, however as an amateur photographer I understand that if you intend to use the picture commercially there are issues around copyright for the photographer and issues for model release forms persons and property release forms for buildings. As usual if there is a commercial value, everyone wants a cut. Now the photographer typically will have full copyright and expect payment etc. to pay models, property owners etc. or they may have a Creative Commons License where they only require recognition. It is a bit of minefield and depends upon the origin of the photo so I would not recommend using pictures from other people and at other sites for anything other than internal use. Providing you are not breaching any declared copyright. Hope this helps Cheers GC

Posted By Arran Linton - Smith You may also be interested in the statement on photographic copyright from the Intellectual Property Office. See: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ty...to/c-photo-ownpost89.htm

Posted By Dave Merchant martinw - that particular worry is offset by the fact they pay you. If we all worked because we loved it and kept everything we made, nobody would be taking home a salary. As H&S people, you're in a tighter situation ref photographs, as anything vaguely related to H&S will be seen as "part of your employment". A typist taking a photo of dodgy scaffolding on their phone has no such problem, but by you saying the photo has some value in H&S, it becomes the property of your employer as they are buying everything you "make" in that subject area during the moments you're on their timeclock. If you don't like it, become a consultant or take photos of kittens. But not kittens in dangerous places.

Posted By Dave Merchant Andrew - the "in the course of" test is legally complex and often casts a very wide net for anyone whose job involves providing consultation/advice/supervision style skills such as H&S. Luke's idea revolves around images that depict something useful to others in H&S, therefore they are useful to the person taking them in the course of their job, hence are owned by the employer. This board isn't the place to go into specifics, but in general the test for self-ownership of IPR is: 1) Should you not be employed in your current role, would you reasonably have cause to create the work for your own personal use? 2) Does the work contribute no benefit whatsoever to you in the conduct of your role, or to your employer thereby? If both are "yes", it's likely the copyright retains with the creator unless there is a blanket agreement of transfer in your employment contract. The test is for example to prevent a cleaner at an office randomly inventing a new type of car engine and having it claimed by their employer - but a new type of vacuum cleaner would be a different matter entirely, as it would be argued the idea came from and during the course of their paid work.

Posted By Dave Merchant Arran - close, but copyright is in CDPA part 1, chapter 1, s11. Design right is a different concept, with slightly more complex rules on first owner.