Consumer Law, Warranties verbal agreement, master copy wedding photos

[newlywed]

I recently got married and had a written contract with the photographer to include service and prints of photos taken. This contract has been fulfilled. The evening of the wedding my photographer gave me a disk that had the raw digital photos she had taken. She stated nothing about payment for this disk, nor was this in the contract-she wanted to be nice so we could 'review' the photos.

After the wedding we had a verbal agreement that I would purchase the 'retouched' photos as the raw photos had poor color/lighting. After 2 months, she brought me a disk which had only 14 of the more than 100 retouched pictures. When I asked where the rest of the photos were, she told me that she did not have the additional photos, that the company who printed the photos took care of that.

I placed two calls with voicemail to the photographer following that discussion and heard nothing back from her until almost 75 days later. At this time, she is claiming that she now has all the photos on disk and expects me to pay for the photos now.

I looked online and found something stating that a verbal agreement for 'transfer of copyright ownership' is not binding and must be in writing. Is this the case? She is threatening to take me to small claims court and I want to be prepared.

 

[presutin]

Check your contract to see if she did not limit the transfer of copyright ownership by a certain time period. If that is the case and it has expired, you are SOL.

 

[newlywed]

Check your contract to see if she did not limit the transfer of copyright ownership by a certain time period. If that is the case and it has expired, you are SOL.

Thanks for the response.

There is no written contract pertaining to either the disk she gave me on the night of my wedding or to the disk she now wants to sell me.

My understanding is that she wants to sell me the copyright to the photos on the disk. The word "copyright" was never used in our conversations, but is this the legal ground I am on? If it is the "copyright" of the photos we are talking about, is a verbal agreement legally binding and enforceable?