[dehrmann]

But you're paying for the xray as part of the service. It might even be a line item on the bill.

[pxeger1]

Merely paying for a service confers no implications about copyright.

[pbhjpbhj]

Absent any other agreement commissioning work implies ownership of copyright.

[tzs]

Not in the US. In the US the author of the work gets copyright unless it is a "work made for hire".

A work made for hire is either:

1. a work prepared by an employee within the scope of their employment, or

2. a work specially ordered or commissioned for use in one of 9 particular ways [1] and the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

The copyright office has a good explanation here: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

[1] The 9 are contribution to a collective work, part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, a translation, a supplementary work, a compilation, an instructional text, a test, answer material for a test, and an atlas.

[dehrmann]

Either the court or the law is wrong; whether someone is an employee or commissioned to create something doesn't change that someone is obviously paying for whatever's created.

The linked doc might not apply in the case of medical images because the image was captured by a company, not an individual. Although I suppose the company is a corporate person...

[Kerrick]

Not in the U.S. Work For Hire is not assumed to be the default for, say, a person who walks into a portrait studio and commissions a headshot.

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf