7 ms·

> In my country in Europe the solution is quite easy: I have the right to get all papers and images from my doctors within 10 years of creation. This doesn't a

> In my country in Europe the solution is quite easy: I have the right to get all papers and images from my doctors within 10 years of creation. This doesn't answer the question in the article tho. The question isn't "Who has the rights to a copy of my medical images". It's "Who owns the copyright to my medical images". To answer that question, you'd first have to find out if your medical images are even protected by copyright in the first place. The answer to this question depends wholly on the picture itself. Let's say a medical image of yours is indeed protected by copyright, then -- even in your country in Europe (regardless of which country it actually is) -- the copyright holder is the person who took the image. Not you. It may very well be that in your country this copyright is restricted by other laws (i.e. Persönlichkeitsrecht in Germany).

chii 4y ago
> the copyright holder is the person who took the image. only if you didn't contract that person to take the image for you. So it makes sense, imho, that the person who paid for the image to be taken to own the copyright.
- LosWochosWeek 4y ago
  This depends on your country and specific copyright laws. These differences exist mostly between common law and roman law countries. In Germany there is a distinction between copyright holder (Inhaber des Urheberrechts) and the entity that is allowed to act on the copyright (Inhaber des Nutzungsrechts). If I take a picture that you contracted me to take, I'm the former and you're the latter.
  - GuB-42 4y ago
    Same thing in France. The one who took the picture has moral rights, no matter who hired whom. These rights are for life and not transferrable, you have them whether you want it or not. It also means you can't put your work in the public domain. These are "respect the author" rights that can be use if someone defaces you work for instance. Parody and satire are exceptions. The one who hired the one who took the picture has patrimonial rights if the contract says so. Patrimonial rights are essentially the right to make money and the closest to US copyright. These are transferrable.
- dctoedt 4y ago
  Unfortunately it's not that simple under U.S. law: Under 17 U.S.C. § 201, the image-maker (more likely, his/her employer) is considered the "author," and thus will own the copyright. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/201 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/201. Exception #1: The contract could provide for the image-maker to assign the copyright to the image subject. See 17 U.S.C. § 204, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/204 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/204. Exception #2: The parties could sign a written work-made-for-hire agreement before the image is created, IFF the work is specially ordered or commissioned for use • as a contribution to a collective work, • as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, • as a translation, • as a supplementary work, • as a compilation, • as an instructional text, • as a test, • as answer material for a test, or • as an atlas. See 17 U.S.C. § 101, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101. For the purpose of Exception #2 “supplementary work” is a work prepared for a publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of • introducing, • concluding, • illustrating, • explaining, • revising, • commenting upon, or • assisting in the use of the other work, such as • forewords, • afterwords, • pictorial illustrations, • maps, •charts, • tables, • editorial notes, • musical arrangements, • answer material for tests, • bibliographies, • appendixes, and • indexes; and an “instructional text” is a • literary, • pictorial, or • graphic work prepared for publication and intended to be used in systematic instructional activities. See 17 U.S.C. § 101, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101.
  - DigitallyFidget 4y ago
    It actually is simple under US law. https://copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-authorship.pdf https://copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-auth... Medical imaging is not copyrightable. Bottom of page 21 to middle of page 22.
    - dctoedt 4y ago
      Good to know - thanks. I was aware of the human-authorship requirement — see, e.g., the "monkey selfie" controversy [0] — but I hadn't known that the Copyright Office took that position about medical imaging. I can imagine that a court might see things differently, given that under Supreme Court precedent [1] it takes comparatively-little human creative effort to constitute an "original work of authorship" as required by the Copyright Act. But it's also likely that no one has ever cared enough about claiming copyright in a medical image to go challenging the Office's position — or that I''m simply not up to date on this area of the law (which isn't part of my day-to-day practice). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....
- briandear 4y ago
  Actually, absent a work for hire agreement, that isn’t true [in the US.] I used to be a contract photographer for Reuters, Time, and a bunch of other places you’ve heard of and my standard agreement was a day rate, and the client would have rights to the specific photo they published. All the outtakes were mine and I subsequently could sell those through an agency. On other assignments, specifically corporate and advertising, those would often be a work-for-hire agreement in which case they owned everything I shot. Of course I charged a lot more for those assignments because I wouldn’t be able to make residuals from agency sales. An example is I photographed Ken Lay for Enron as a work for hire. So when the Enron scandal hit, I couldn’t sell anything from that shoot. Another assignment was a Bush family portrait for Reuters in 1998. I was able to sell my outtakes and that made me a pile of money during the 2000 presidential campaign since there was no work for hire agreement. And the Bush’s didn’t have any rights to those photos despite being the subject even though I shot it in their family home. The point is that work-for-hire has to be explicit. For medical imagery, it would seem that the creator of the images would have the rights, but HIPAA would preclude them using them unless there was a specific release (which is common in teaching hospitals.)
  - blowski 4y ago
    Photographer, software engineer, and restauranteur. That’s quite a career! Any stories?
traceroute66 4y ago
> This doesn't answer the question in the article tho. The question isn't "Who has the rights to a copy of my medical images". It's "Who owns the copyright to my medical images". Yes, but that's kind of the point .... the blog post was asking the wrong question. In the context of the blog post, "but copyright" is BS and the staff member should have been pulled up on it. Reason ? GDPR. In Europe access to "personally identifiable information" is basically a god given right, saying "no" is not an option. Therefore ..... X-Ray linked to Patient Record = clearly PII = access granted. End of story. The providing entity has the right to charge a limited fee for "admin" but that's it. ALSO From a legal perspective, what contract the provider has signed with the equipment manufacturer is IRRELEVANT. The patient's legal relationship is with the healthcare provider. The onus is on the healthcare provider to ensure they are covered downstream for GDPR release, but lack of downstream coverage IS NOT an excuse to withhold GDPR release.
andix 4y ago
We don’t have the concept of copyright.
- sholladay 4y ago
  That is... unlikely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_European_...
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    This isn't a creative work so the applicability of copyright is dubious.
    - LosWochosWeek 4y ago
      How would you know? Whether or not something is protected by copyright is not something you can asses with a blanket statement. Medical images can definitely be protected by copyright.
      - littlestymaar 4y ago
        Can there exist medical images protected by copyright? Definitely I'm you can even find an image made by a photocopier that can be protected by copyright, but that doesn't mean photocopies are usually so. You're gonna have a hard time convincing a court that your dental radio was in fact creative art.
  - andix 4y ago
    What I meant to say was, that we don’t have the concept of transferable copyright.
    - LosWochosWeek 4y ago
      How does that tie into what I explained?
- 4y ago
wyldfire 4y ago
> the copyright holder is the person who took the image. Not you. But it could be interesting to think about whether a dental X-ray is "your likeness". So even if the dentist holds the copyright, their copyright is burdened/encumbered by the fact that it's a "picture of you". Unless you sign away that right in exchange for treatment, the copyright might not be that useful.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

chii 4y ago

> the copyright holder is the person who took the image. only if you didn't contract that person to take the image for you. So it makes sense, imho, that the person who paid for the image to be taken to own the copyright.

LosWochosWeek 4y ago
This depends on your country and specific copyright laws. These differences exist mostly between common law and roman law countries. In Germany there is a distinction between copyright holder (Inhaber des Urheberrechts) and the entity that is allowed to act on the copyright (Inhaber des Nutzungsrechts). If I take a picture that you contracted me to take, I'm the former and you're the latter.
- GuB-42 4y ago
  Same thing in France. The one who took the picture has moral rights, no matter who hired whom. These rights are for life and not transferrable, you have them whether you want it or not. It also means you can't put your work in the public domain. These are "respect the author" rights that can be use if someone defaces you work for instance. Parody and satire are exceptions. The one who hired the one who took the picture has patrimonial rights if the contract says so. Patrimonial rights are essentially the right to make money and the closest to US copyright. These are transferrable.
dctoedt 4y ago
Unfortunately it's not that simple under U.S. law: Under 17 U.S.C. § 201, the image-maker (more likely, his/her employer) is considered the "author," and thus will own the copyright. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/201 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/201. Exception #1: The contract could provide for the image-maker to assign the copyright to the image subject. See 17 U.S.C. § 204, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/204 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/204. Exception #2: The parties could sign a written work-made-for-hire agreement before the image is created, IFF the work is specially ordered or commissioned for use • as a contribution to a collective work, • as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, • as a translation, • as a supplementary work, • as a compilation, • as an instructional text, • as a test, • as answer material for a test, or • as an atlas. See 17 U.S.C. § 101, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101. For the purpose of Exception #2 “supplementary work” is a work prepared for a publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of • introducing, • concluding, • illustrating, • explaining, • revising, • commenting upon, or • assisting in the use of the other work, such as • forewords, • afterwords, • pictorial illustrations, • maps, •charts, • tables, • editorial notes, • musical arrangements, • answer material for tests, • bibliographies, • appendixes, and • indexes; and an “instructional text” is a • literary, • pictorial, or • graphic work prepared for publication and intended to be used in systematic instructional activities. See 17 U.S.C. § 101, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101.
- DigitallyFidget 4y ago
  It actually is simple under US law. https://copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-authorship.pdf https://copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-auth... Medical imaging is not copyrightable. Bottom of page 21 to middle of page 22.
  - dctoedt 4y ago
    Good to know - thanks. I was aware of the human-authorship requirement — see, e.g., the "monkey selfie" controversy [0] — but I hadn't known that the Copyright Office took that position about medical imaging. I can imagine that a court might see things differently, given that under Supreme Court precedent [1] it takes comparatively-little human creative effort to constitute an "original work of authorship" as required by the Copyright Act. But it's also likely that no one has ever cared enough about claiming copyright in a medical image to go challenging the Office's position — or that I''m simply not up to date on this area of the law (which isn't part of my day-to-day practice). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....
briandear 4y ago
Actually, absent a work for hire agreement, that isn’t true [in the US.] I used to be a contract photographer for Reuters, Time, and a bunch of other places you’ve heard of and my standard agreement was a day rate, and the client would have rights to the specific photo they published. All the outtakes were mine and I subsequently could sell those through an agency. On other assignments, specifically corporate and advertising, those would often be a work-for-hire agreement in which case they owned everything I shot. Of course I charged a lot more for those assignments because I wouldn’t be able to make residuals from agency sales. An example is I photographed Ken Lay for Enron as a work for hire. So when the Enron scandal hit, I couldn’t sell anything from that shoot. Another assignment was a Bush family portrait for Reuters in 1998. I was able to sell my outtakes and that made me a pile of money during the 2000 presidential campaign since there was no work for hire agreement. And the Bush’s didn’t have any rights to those photos despite being the subject even though I shot it in their family home. The point is that work-for-hire has to be explicit. For medical imagery, it would seem that the creator of the images would have the rights, but HIPAA would preclude them using them unless there was a specific release (which is common in teaching hospitals.)
- blowski 4y ago
  Photographer, software engineer, and restauranteur. That’s quite a career! Any stories?

traceroute66 4y ago

> This doesn't answer the question in the article tho. The question isn't "Who has the rights to a copy of my medical images". It's "Who owns the copyright to my medical images". Yes, but that's kind of the point .... the blog post was asking the wrong question. In the context of the blog post, "but copyright" is BS and the staff member should have been pulled up on it. Reason ? GDPR. In Europe access to "personally identifiable information" is basically a god given right, saying "no" is not an option. Therefore ..... X-Ray linked to Patient Record = clearly PII = access granted. End of story. The providing entity has the right to charge a limited fee for "admin" but that's it. ALSO From a legal perspective, what contract the provider has signed with the equipment manufacturer is IRRELEVANT. The patient's legal relationship is with the healthcare provider. The onus is on the healthcare provider to ensure they are covered downstream for GDPR release, but lack of downstream coverage IS NOT an excuse to withhold GDPR release.

andix 4y ago

We don’t have the concept of copyright.

sholladay 4y ago
That is... unlikely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_European_...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  This isn't a creative work so the applicability of copyright is dubious.
  - LosWochosWeek 4y ago
    How would you know? Whether or not something is protected by copyright is not something you can asses with a blanket statement. Medical images can definitely be protected by copyright.
    - littlestymaar 4y ago
      Can there exist medical images protected by copyright? Definitely I'm you can even find an image made by a photocopier that can be protected by copyright, but that doesn't mean photocopies are usually so. You're gonna have a hard time convincing a court that your dental radio was in fact creative art.
- andix 4y ago
  What I meant to say was, that we don’t have the concept of transferable copyright.
  - LosWochosWeek 4y ago
    How does that tie into what I explained?
4y ago

wyldfire 4y ago

> the copyright holder is the person who took the image. Not you. But it could be interesting to think about whether a dental X-ray is "your likeness". So even if the dentist holds the copyright, their copyright is burdened/encumbered by the fact that it's a "picture of you". Unless you sign away that right in exchange for treatment, the copyright might not be that useful.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]