How I'd choose a photographer who lets me keep the photos

I'd choose the photographer who'll put in writing what I get to keep, before I look closely at a single album. A booking can be three separate purchases, the hours, the files and the right to use them, and I'd want to know which ones I'm paying for.

What the law does by default

The guides I can find paraphrase this clause rather than quote it, so here's the Copyright Act 1987 itself, in its 2013 reprint.¹

Section 26 starts copyright with the author, then adds a twist for commissioned work. If someone who isn't the author's employer commissions it, the copyright "shall be deemed to be transferred" to that person.¹ That's "subject to any agreement" excluding or limiting the transfer.¹

A law firm, Donovan & Ho, reads it the same way, and adds that the commissioning has to come before the work is made. The Malaysia chapter of a 2025 Chambers guide also has commissioned works going to the person who commissioned them, unless the parties agree otherwise.³

So my plain reading is that if I hire someone to shoot my wedding and the paperwork says nothing, the copyright comes to me. I'd expected the opposite.

The catch in the small words

The catch is those words, "any agreement". A photographer's contract can keep the copyright, and my guess is that plenty do, though I couldn't find a survey of what these contracts actually say. The default only helps me if the paper is silent.

There's an oddity too. For a photograph, the Act's "author" isn't necessarily the person holding the camera, but "the person by whom the arrangements for the taking of the photograph were undertaken".¹ I wouldn't want to argue what that means at a wedding.

The later amendments I could check don't seem to touch this section, though I only have a summary of one of them. If real money rides on it, I'd ask a lawyer.

The right isn't the files

This is the part I'd want people to catch. Copyright is about who controls the copying, and nothing in those sections says anyone must hand me anything.

So I could own every frame on paper and still hold only the small set the photographer chose to send. The opposite can happen as well: I could have every file and no right to use them for my business.

What I'd treat as separate things to buy

Raw files are where I'd expect the argument. I couldn't find a rule on them, or a Malaysian survey.

My guess is that many photographers won't hand them over, because an unedited frame isn't what they want to be judged on. I don't think that's unreasonable. I'd just want to hear it before I pay.

I don't have a fair price for you either. The prices I came across are photographers' own listings, without a date on the price and in no form I could compare, so I'm leaving them out.

What I'd ask

1. How many edited photos, at what size, and by what date?
2. Are raw files included, extra or never?
3. If you keep the copyright, what may I do with the photos? Print them, post them, hand them to family, use them for work?
4. May you use my photos in your ads or on your page, and can I say no?
5. Who else is shooting, and does this contract cover their pictures?
6. If the day runs over, what's the hourly rate, and who decides it has run over?
7. How long do you keep a backup, and what happens if a card fails?

Question three needs paper. The Act says no assignment of copyright and no licence "shall have effect unless it is in writing".¹ I don't know how a court would treat a chirpy WhatsApp, so I'd want the permission in the contract.

The same rule runs the other way, on my reading. If the copyright did come to me, the photographer's portfolio would need my written licence, which is a conversation worth having politely and early.

The second shooter

A second shooter is a small trap. Section 26 sends an employee's work to the employer and commissioned work to whoever commissioned it.¹

So if my photographer hires a freelancer for the day, my reading is that those pictures may land with my photographer, not me, unless the paper says otherwise. I could be wrong about that, and it only matters if things turn sour. One line covering everyone who shoots would settle it.

When I'd walk away

The usual advice is to start with the portfolio. I'd start with the contract, because a bad clause can't be fixed once the day is over.

The portfolio people are right about one thing: no clause makes a dull photographer interesting. So I'd still look, and I'd ask for one whole event from start to finish, not the best twenty frames of a career.

I'd walk away from "don't worry, you'll get everything" from someone who won't write it down. If it goes wrong anyway, I'd look at the same place I'd look after a bad house move.

That's the Tribunal for Consumer Claims, and its chairman told The Star in 2023 that it hears goods and services purchases up to RM50,000, for a RM5 fee.⁴ Lawyers generally stay out of the hearing, with an exception for big firms' in-house counsel. A date and a number in writing are what I'd want to carry in.