Answer grounded in published legislation
Your question
I'm the photographer. I took photos for a client which paid me cheap to take photos at an event. I then used the photos as a portfolio on my website. He then said he will sue me because it's his property. I told him no, I have the copyright. Who is right?
On the stated facts, the client is more likely to be right about copyright ownership. Where a person commissions a photograph and pays valuable consideration, that commissioning person owns the copyright, unless there is an agreement excluding that default rule. The amount paid (“cheap”) does not alter the rule; the Act refers to *any* valuable consideration. 1
You are still the photograph’s “author” if you were responsible for its composition, but authorship is not necessarily the same as copyright ownership in commissioned photographs. 3
Therefore, unless your contract or another agreement specifically reserved copyright to you or permitted portfolio use, the client would ordinarily own the copyright. 1 The supplied extracts do not establish whether placing the photos on your website is infringement in the particular circumstances, or whether you had an express or implied licence to do so.
Verified sources
Where this answer comes from
Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 6 of 1994
(2) Where a person commissions the taking of a photograph, the painting or drawing of a portrait, or the making of a gravure, cinematograph film or sound recording against payment of any valuable consideration, the person who commissions such work shall, s ubject to subsection (1), be the owner of any copyright subsisting in the work by virtue of section 3 or 4. (3) Where, in a case not falling within either subsection (1) or (2), a work is made by an employee in the course of his or her employment under a contract of service or apprenticeship, such person’ s employer shall be the owner of any copyright subsisting in the work by virtue of section 3 or 4. (4) Subsections (1), (2) and (3) shal...
Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 6 of 1994
or her employment by the proprietor of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical under a contract of service or apprenticeship, and such work is so made for the purpose of publication in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, that proprietor shall be the owner of the copyright in the work with respect to publication of the work in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical or reproduction of the work for the purpose of such publication, but in all other respects the employee shall be the owner of the copyright subsisting in the work by virtue of
Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 6 of 1994
otherwise the word “either” makes no sense.] “author”, in relation to - (a) a literary or musical work, or an artistic work other than a photograph, which is not computer-generated, means the person who first makes or creates the work, or in the case of such a work, which is computer-generated, means the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work were undertaken; (b) photograph, means the person who is responsible for the composition of the photograph; (c) a sound recording, means the person by whom the arrangements for the making of the sound recording were made;
Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 6 of 1994
and (b) it is not proved that the work or program has ever been published under the true name of the author, or under a name by which he or she was com monly known or that it is possible for a person without previous knowledge of the facts to as certain the identity of the author by reasonable inquiry. (6) Where in any criminal or civil proceedings brought by virtue of this Chapter with respect to the alleged infringement of copyright in a cinematograph film it is proved that the name purporting to be the name of the author of that film appears thereon in the prescribed manner, the person whose name so appears shall be pre sumed to be the author of that film unless the contrary is proved. (...
Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 6 of 1994
(6) A testamentary disposition of the original document or other material on which a work is first written or otherwise recorded shall, in the absence of a stipulation to the contrary, be construed as including a disposition of the copyright in the work in so far as the testator was the owner of the copyright immediately before his or her death or, if at the testator ’s death no copyright subsisted in the work, a disposition of any future copyright in that work. (7) A licence granted in respect of any copyright by the person who, in relation to the matters to which the licence relates, is the owner of the copyright, shall be binding upon every successor in title to his or her interest in the...
Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 6 of 1994
musical or artistic work, a cinematograph film or a computer program, the author shall have the right -