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 <jmh...@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_eligible_for_protection > > 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 > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
