Supreme Court Lets Utilization Rights Stand

Moof writes "The United States Supreme Court refused to hear a case between a programmer and his former employer. What makes this news is the fact that the court is letting stand the rulings of the lower courts: Essentially if someone owns a physical copy of software, then they are allowed to modify the code as part of their regular use, no matter what other agreements are in place."

Comments

Re:How does he legally claim copyright?

[Foobar of Borg]

most (if not all) photographers have contracts that state that the image taken is own by them

This is the important distinction. From my understanding (IANALawyer), since this is a work for hire, if the photographer's contract does not specifically state that they retain the rights to the photographs, then you have a case for owning the copyrights to the photos yourself since it was a work for hire. Most want it not just so they can charge you for reprints (although my wedding photographer let us buy the negatives and the rights after one year), but so they can also use the pictures in their advertising and as part of their portfolio. Without a good portfolio, a photographer has little or no business.