The purpose of this masters thesis is to analyze the legal part and laws concerning copyrights focusing on photography, a brief look at the history of copyrights in the Slovenian territory and the changes made in the last hundred years and also explaining the main terms needed to understant copyrights.
The above is followed by defining the terms of photographs being considered as copyrighted material. The experimental part also reviews the current state of photographers copyrights considering the advancement of the internet, a brief look at the terms and conditions of social media sites, stock photography sites and their licences, followed by a look at some of the more known copyright infringement cases and a view at copyright infringement through media.
Through the research in this theses, it has been found, that the number of copyright infringements is increasing with the growth of the internet but there are also more ways to improve this state. While analyzing the theoretical information on copyright, it was found that the copyrighted work is legally protected from the moment of its creation or publication, the author can not sell or give their moral rights to anyone else. It was also found that when publishing photos on social networks, the author does not waive their copyrights. We have also found out in what manner and under what licenses it is possible to sell copyrighted photos on stock photography sites and that any photograph created is not necessarily considered as copyrighted work, it must fulfill certain legal requirements.
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