I borrowed my friend's camera to take a landscape photo, then the photo suddenly won the prize, but you thought the work was hers, and I just pressed the button.
I'm not a professional photographer, I have an old camera my father left behind for a long time and broke on the day of a family trip. I temporarily borrowed another camera from my friend to take pictures of the scene as souvenirs.
When I learned that the city had a contest, I searched for a few photos and sent them. I didn't expect to get a high prize, so I thoughtlessly went to receive them, showed them off to my friends, and gave them half of the prize money. It's not much, but after all, it's your camera that gets my prize.
But I was surprised when you reacted harshly, telling me that I was tempted to bring the photo to the exam because in reality the photo should have been yours. You say if I were blunt, I would have sued you.
I was both sad and confused, not knowing if I was really breaking the law.
Could it be that just because someone lent me a laptop, does the novel I type on it automatically belong to that person?
I would like to ask how the law regulates copyright, in which case the photo work is considered to belong to whom? Thank you.
Reader Loc
Legal Advice:
According to Clause 1, Article 12a of the Law on Intellectual Property (2005, as amended in 2022), regulations regarding authors and co-authors are as follows:
"An author is the person who directly creates a work. Where two or more persons directly create a work with the intention that their contributions be combined into a complete whole, those persons are co-authors."
In your case, since you were the one who selected the location, timing, and camera angles, and personally took the photographs, you are the author of the work in question.
Your friend merely lent you the camera to create the work; therefore, they are not considered a co-author.
Ownership or lending of a camera does not equate to co-creation or ownership of the resulting work, nor does it give rise to copyright over the product created using that camera—unless there was a prior agreement regarding a photography commission, a work assignment, or copyright sharing.