[baldgeek]

When I got married (20+ years ago), my dad painted (oil panting on canvas) of our engagement photo that our photographer took, and wanted to display it at our wedding reception. I asked our photographer at the time if it was ok, and he mentioned that his painting was considered "deriavitive work", so that he wasn't violating his copyright. Yea, I get he's not a lawyer, and this is just a single instance, but I hope the outcome for Kat Von D, especially since she didn't get paid for the tattoo comes out the same.

[ordersofmag]

That's not how it works. The copyright holder (the photographer your case) has exclusive rights to produce works that are 'derivative' of the original. So your Dad would likely be in violation of copyright law without permission of the photographer. Now one could argue your Dad's painting was fair use on the grounds that it was 'transformative'. But given case law as I understand it (IANAL), that would be unlikely to hold up on court. That said practically it seems unlikely the photographer would sue given the likely market for your wedding photo...

[mauvia]

As far as I understand it, Derivative work is not exactly protected. The default is infringement, you have to prove to a judge that your derivative work is defensible because of some argument or the other (Fair use being one set of them).

[gklitz]

> especially since she didn't get paid for the tattoo comes out the same.

If she paid forward every bit of money flowing too her due to social media attention decided by the share of engagement derived from the photo, the artist would be Extremely happy and the case would be over.

These days attention is money, and this already gave her a ton of attention, not it’s giving her even more.

[jpc0]

Reasonably sure YOU PAYING a photographer for a photo of YOUR engagement would give you the copyright...

Emphasis on the important parts there, feel free to correct if I got one of them wrong.

[usefulcat]

I don't know how common this is nowadays, but I'm pretty sure it used to be fairly common for wedding photographers to retain the copyright to all the photographs they take (even when you are paying them).

Often they would not share the negatives or full resolution images. That way if you decide you want enlargements, more prints, whatever, you have no choice but to buy them from the original photographer.

BTW, in the above scenario it's highly advisable to get whatever pictures you want soon after the event. No telling how good your photographer's backup practices are, or whether the basement where they keep all the negatives will get flooded..

[topkai22]

You often don’t get the copyright to the photographers take of you, even if you are paying them. It depends on the contract you sign. I won’t hire photographers who won’t give me rights to the photos at the end. This has been an issue with a surprising number of them.