The Conflict Between Portrait Right And Copyright In Wedding-portrait Photographs

Since the development of photography as a new form of arts, photographs had recognized and protectedby the copyright law all of the world. As a branch of the photography, the wedding-portrait photographshave not only the common features of all photographs, but also have their own characteristics. It’s not just akind of portrait photographs, on the other hand, it contains many commercial factors, which lead to theconflicts between portrait right and copyright in wedding-portrait photographs are very complicated. Theauthor shows us the status of the wedding-portrait photography market in China by the way of samplesurvey.We can see that the wedding-portrait photography industry has developed very huge and it iskeeping expanding all the time. But there are always many disputes in such a big market which are causedby the contracts lacking, the the digital negatives’ ascription’s uncertain and the use permission of thephotos’ blurred. After analysis these tree problem, the author come up with a conclusion that, all theseproblems are caused by the conflict between the portrait right and copyright in wedding-portraitphotographs.Talking about the conflicts between the portrait rights and the copy rights of wedding-portraitphotographs, the author thinks we should admit the existence of rights conflicts and try to resolve them.Since for the portrait right and copyright, they have subject ranges, objects attributes and similarities incontents, as it is the different subjects of right possessing similar rights on the same object of right thatleads to the rights conflicts in wedding-portrait photographs. The conflicts contain the following situations:the copyright owner using the portrait without the permission of the portrait right owner, the copyrightowner transferring the portrait right without the permission of the portrait right owner, and the portrait rightowner using the portrait works offered by others without the permission of the copyright owner and in turnviolating the right of the copyright owner. All these situation have familiar reasons: historical elements,which consists of the origins of copy rights in portrait works and the remaining problems after thetransformation period from the planned economic system to the market economic system; essentialelements, which constitutes the special right attributes of human rights and intellectual property rights, andthe causes of rights driven by interests; the practical elements, which in fact is the conflicts between the primary stage of legal construction and the promotion of awareness in civil rights. According to theanalyses and explanations above, it is manifest that resolving the rights’ conflicts is not easy but there areregulations to abide by.Comparing the legislative styles of China and other countries, the author expresses suggestions fromthe aspects of professional standards, legal principles and specific articles of law, since the industry ofwedding or portrait photography is in want of unified standards and regulations and the classic theories oflaw in solving relevant cases could be drawn on as the resolutions of conflicts between the portrait rightsand copy rights. In the end, the author emphasizes that the most practical and effective way to solve theproblems is to further establish and complete particular rules in the laws concerning portrait rights and copyrights in portrait works. In addition, since we do not have a specialized law to solve the conflicts of portraitand copyright, we should fit the law accurately when we solve the problem in order to realize the realjustice.