Here's the scenario:
I work for a company that does some home improvement work.
An architect designed the house, we did the work. I found pictures of that work online, contacted the architect and his response was that he had hired a photographer to take those pictures.
I contacted the photographer and he wants to sell me the pictures — for a lot of money I must add.
I originally wanted to post the pictures on my website, with a link to the photographer's web page, obviously crediting him, and the architect for the work as well.
But now I have a couple of questions:
Does he own the copyright to those pictures even if they are of my work?
Can I use the pictures, even if he disagrees, if I credit him for the work?
Can I get in trouble for any of it?
Can he get in trouble for using pictures of my work?
I really thought it would be nice to link to his page displaying his work and ours, and since the pictures are about five years old, I didn't think he would want to charge so much.
I've emailed the US Copyright office, but I didn't get a convincing answer about the whole scenario:
"Generally speaking, the copyright ownership rights in a photograph belong to the photographer."