Is that x-ray under copyright?

When patients get an MRI, do they think about who owns its copyright? Would you know the answer if someone asked?

Well, an article posted to photography website PetaPixel.com looked at the question and the laws that apply to images. It finds under HIPPA, typically the rights to medical records, including imaging scans are passed to the healthcare provider that created it. However, the Privacy Rule under this Act gives patients the right to inspect, review and receive copies of medical and billing records.

Interestingly, the same article also took a look at The Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices: Chapter 300 (revision 9/29/2017) and found that medical imaging is actually not copyrightable.

That chapter clearly states: “Similarly, the office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.”

Examples of that that work consists of was listed further down in chapter 300: “Medical imaging produced by x-rays, ultrasounds, magnetic resonance imaging or other diagnostic equipment.”