save the photographers

When a law student studying intellectual property and her photographer best friend get together, what else would be discussed except copyright protection and the lack thereof in Singapore.

Copyright is infamous for being culturally biased, and in the context of photography, the genre has only been accepted recently as an ‘artistic work’ – which is defined as ‘a painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving or photograph’ (S7(1) Copyright Act).

However, artistic work or not, the statutory regime seems to treat photography as a second-class genre of an artistic work, with different sections dealing separately with artistic work and photography especially when it comes to authorship and owning of copyright.

S30(5) of the Copyright Act states that

where —
(a) a person makes, for valuable consideration, an agreement with another person for the taking of a photograph, the painting or drawing of a portrait or the making of an engraving by the other person; and
(b) the work is made in pursuance of the agreement,
the first-mentioned person shall be entitled to any copyright subsisting in the work by virtue of this Part, except that if the work is required for any particular purpose, that purpose shall be communicated to that other person and that other person shall be entitled to restrain the doing, otherwise than for that particular purpose, of any act comprised in the copyright in the work.

which in simple English means that if a photographer is hired as an independent contractor to carry out a photographic shoot for someone (or some company), that someone (or some company) automatically owns the copyright to the photographers work.

It’s automatic. No questions asked, no need to argue about it. The photographer loses his rights to any photograph taken in return for payment swiftly and immediately.

Seeing as most photographers, in general and in particular, work on the basis of independent hire and contracting, the Copyright Act sure doesn’t give a lot of protection at all to the photographers in Singapore, does it?

Oh sure, S30(3) allows for

The operation of subsection (4), (5) or (6) in relation to copyright in a particular work may be excluded or modified by agreement.

but seriously, how many photographers in Singapore know about this? And how many of them will make use of this? From my observations, many of them are so happy to get a job that considerations of copyright protection only occur later, when they’ve signed their rights away.

Worst of all, because the copyright automatically rests with the person hiring the photographer, the burden thus lies upon the photographer him/herself to modify or exclude the operation of S30(5). Which then gives rise to the issues of how many of them know exactly which rights need to be protected for their best interests, and how many of them are able to bargain with the other party?

Many regard photography as an unmeritorious and purely technical, and it is this perception that results in the downgrading of the photographers right to protect his or her photographic works as seen above. And because many photographers act as independent contractors, they lack the bargaining power that would enable them to negotiate for better deals or better rights. This lack of bargaining power places photographers in a worse position than plumbers.

The best friend was asked to do a shoot for a well-known fashion line which required at least a few days pre- and post- work on top of the shoot itself for $2,000 - which includes transport, equipment hire/rental, studio rental etc etc etc. Out of that sum, he probably only really gets $500? I mean, if you need a plumber to fix your pipes, you’re not exactly going to bargain with the plumber and cut his fees in half or more, are you?

The situation is further exacerbated by the lack of a overall body or an association of photographers which acts on behalf of the photographers in Singapore to educate them of their rights and how to protect them.

Photographers should band together and prevent the exploitation of their works. If all photographers, or a large proportion of them, were given standard form contracts that they could fill in or delete as required, and if all their dealings with others were based upon these standard form contracts, photographers would be able to gain more rights and protection for themselves. This standard form contract would then be recognized as the contract between a photographer and the person hiring his or her services, and would act to the benefit of both parties involved.

Without co-operation, photographers as individual actors will always be shortchanged and unable to exercise fully their rights and creators and authors of their works. Professional photographers will know better than give away all their rights except at premium prices, and Singapore will be left with a huge pool of amateur photographers who are desperate for any job, and will do them at cut-rate prices without reserving any of their rights at all. You get what you pay for, so cheapskate companies will get lousy photographers and lousy work, which then leads to the companies hiring foreign photographers for the job at higher prices (because they're foreign talent, y'know?), and less jobs for local photographers, thus making them more desperate thus perpetuating a never-ending vicious cycle.

if the situation does end up that way, alarm bells should ring, and church bells should toll, for the death of Singaporean photography is nigh.

long live Singaporean photography, god save Singaporean photography.