Who owns the photos: the creator or the one who pays for the creation?

I believe that our photographer licenses the use of the photos to us for use on mls and marketing materials...and to all of the websites that receive the photos from our mls. I will ask those who may know for sure.

Our mls rules say: "By submitting photographs to the MLS, the participant and/or subscriber represents and warrants that he or she either owns the right to reproduce and display such photographs or has procured such rights from the appropriate party, and has the authority to grant and hereby grants the MLS and the other Participants and Subscribers the right to reproduce and display the photographs in accordance with these rules and regulations. Use of photographs by a subsequent listing agent requires prior written authorization from the originating listing agent or other appropriate party with the legal right to reproduce and display such photographs." 

if you posted them, whether you paid for them or took them yourself, they are yours.... you can take them down.... and no one should be using them.... they're your photos.

As soon as they are posted on our MLS, we 'give them' to the MLS . . . so the photographer loses control. As soon as I pay for them, actually! They're mine and then MLS gets to use them . . . I can also use them elsewhere.

My feeling are "Who Cares!". I don't want the pics after my contract has expired.

Depends, who paid for them and did they let the photographer get away with keeping the copyright.

Follow the rules of your MLS.

If the listing agent pays or takes the photos then they are his/hers.

I'd say we give rights to our MLS, even they are my pictures.

If you take them, you own them.  Many MLS's require you to sign away rights to them when you join so that they can brand them and republish them through syndication.

If you pay a photographer, that's a grey area and depends on what your contract says.

Mott Marvin Kornicki Check with your MLS as others have said.

That depends.

If  I paid for the photos with all rights, they are mine. A

Depends if you have a contract with the photographer where they retain the photo rights which i would never agree to. If i am paying for them they are mine. When posted in the MLS, they are still mine and why i take my own as i am a self proclaimed professional photographer too

That would be outlined in the MLS policies. I belong to the same MLS as John. 

It varies from state to state, MLS to MLS, Mott.

My photos, but we gave the rights to MLS. 

In real life agents "borrow" your pictures here and there...

And only one time I was upset with the agent, who took all my pictures from an expired listing. He told me he took those pictures. I was really 

and it took a few days with Miami Association of Realtors to remove all of them.

Our MLS puts their watermark on the photos & claims rights to them. That goes as far as WHO can use them. It doesn't interfere with you using them on websites or social media. MLS frowns on you deleting them once they are on there but you have a delete button.

The person who took them or paid to have them taken! 

If you hire and pay a photographer, you own them.

I pay for them, but there are rules by the professional photographer.

If you pay for them you do.

The agent unless the photographer tells you something different in writing. You cannot use photos in the MLS as they belong to other agents. I pay my photographer to take neighborhood and community photos for me. They belong to me. 

I have never hired a photographer, instead I bought a camera with a wide angle lens that with my sense of the layout, looks great.  Most of my sellers love the pictures that I take. As far as MLS, none are watermarked and I don't really care if my association is the owner or not. As far as stealing pictures that another agent had on their own listing, never done that.