Under US law (I know very little about the law of other countries):
Unless the patient somehow contributed creatively to the image (broke
his bones in a certain creative pattern), it's certainly not the HMO
or patient. If the X-ray tech is an employee, then it's certainly not
the X-ray tech.
The possibilities would be:
1) Public domain
2) Anyone who contributed creatively to the image (I guess that would
be the X-ray tech?), if they weren't an employee
3) The employer of 2, if they were an employee.
4) Someone who commissioned the work of 2 or 3 for part of a
collective work or compilation.
5) Someone who was assigned copyright in a written transfer.
I would say 2 or 3 would probably be the most likely.
On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 7:08 AM, James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A question about copyright, who owns the copyright on
Xrays and are they
even copyrightable? I have uploaded a few of them and no one seems to know
the answer. I guess the options would be:
1) They are in the public domain
https://open.umich.edu/wiki/Casebook#Radiograph_.28X-Ray.29 and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Kingdom#Works_elig…
2) The X ray tech who took the image
3) The person / institution who paid to have the image taken
a) The HMO or patient if in the USA
b) The government if in many parts of the world
4) The doctor who ordered the image
5) The doctor who read the image
6) The hospital / shareholders of the hospital who owns the equipment
7) All of the above / some of the above / none of the above
Would be good to have a legal position on this.
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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