09.05
Pete Jenkins, the Vice-chair of the NUJ (http://www.nuj.org.uk/) Photographer’s sub committee sent through a very insightful article he wrote for the British Journal of Photography on concert photography and the increasing trend of rights grabs contracts.
For a number of years now bands’ tour managers have sometimes presented music photographers with contracts or agreements as they enter venues to shoot gigs. Almost always detrimental in terminology to the photographer, these contracts are presented in such a way that to not sign is to not be allowed entry to the gig. It (usually) doesn’t matter who the photographer represents, how far they may have travelled, or who they are. No signature equals no access.
Download the full PDF of the article below.
BJP Rights Grab Article
Hi Black Shadow,
thanks for this, very interesting reading and brilliant blog…love it.
ciao
Valerio
PS-Good luck with Goldfrapp, she put on a wonderful show but it is quite tough to get a pass for her, apparently she choose personally all the photographers, at least in UK. I hope to succeed in October!
Cheers for flagging this Rich, something needs to change soon. I have no problems signing releases that exclude anything other than Editorial use but some of the rights grabs that are floating around are atrocious and I’ve responded in all the ways described. I’ve signed under a false name, argued and had offending lines removed and a couple of times just walked away. It’s a tough call, but if you’re shooting on spec’ rather than for a specific publication I think the walk away option is the only way to go. Of course if you have an editor waiting for your shots then it’s a different ball game and a lot depends on your relationship with the publication.
I’ve been lucky in as far as I’m usually shooting at the lower end of the market so the bands I work with are after all the publicity they can get but the industry is going to start suffering soon if a “peace treaty” isn’t found.
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Mike
Excellent article. It succinctly summarizes the issue and potential solutions. It would be good to have a broader reaching organization that educates music photographers worldwide, encourages responsible behavior on their part, and therefore helps improve the trust from managers and artists. Artists need the music press to generate show ticket sales. I think a common agreement between artists and media that formalizes the “editorial use only” use of the photographs may go a long way towards quelling the concerns of managers and artists.
Editorial, documentary and educational use is the only use afforded the press in the US under the Fair Use clause of the US Copyright Act. Any commercial use falls under the “right of publicity” clause and requires a signed release from every recognizable person in the photographs.
Drafting a formal, common agreement for photographers and artists (via artist management) would solidify trust without robbing the photographer of rights to their own work. Vetting photographers by requiring their assignment sponsors to provide the agreements might facilitate the process.
The response would be interesting if the same form in reverse was put to the bands’ tour managers for any playing of the music on radio or TV, or even by photographers. No publicity without agreeing that rights to use the music was then signed away.
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Here in the UK, where I am based, the situation is that when presented with contracts/agreements, there are some who refuse to sign and walk away. They are in the minority. For every one who does not sign, two will step forward and sign.
Most photographers I know, generally do not read these when presented with them just before collecting their photopasses and scrawl an illegible signature or sign ‘M Mouse’ and hand it back, usually to the box office person who hands over the photopass in exchange. Whether these documents are legit agreements according to US or UK law is another point, but there is widespread abuse by photographers who syndicate their images under a pseudonym with agencies in direct contravention of the terms and conditions and the agencies are happy to have the photographs, because contracts create scarcity which has higher value than if everyone is allowed to shoot. However, as no one has been made an example of, everyone continues to abuse the ‘agreements’ and get away with it. Even the PR’s and labels turn a blind eye because the photographs get used and it’s publicity .. it sells the artist, which sells the music, concert tickets, merchandising, etc. If a tour is half sold, getting on the front page of the Sun will definitely put a few more bums on seats, irrespective of how the photographs were taken.
Contracts and restrictions only create a black market in images of the artist making it financially lucrative for some photographers to sneak cameras into the concerts and take pictures from the audience. Major music publications have been known to commission photographers to shoot from the audience at festivals or concerts if they are not permitted access to shoot the artist from the pit. On the recent Kylie Minogue tour, the whole show was photographed by someone in the audience right in front of her whilst the Sun’s photographer was restricted to the first 3 songs from a platform at the sound desk. The next day, the Sun ran with the sneaked photographs. At the recent V Festival, no photographers were allowed to shoot Girls Aloud in the pit; so those with long lenses shot them from the audience. Needless to say these sneaked images are not under any control whatsoever and so the raison d’etre for having contracts in the first place i.e. to have control over images of the artist no longer has any merit because it creates an uncontrolled situation which only gets worse the more restrictions there are.
To further complicate matters, some photographers have separate agreements with their publishers eg IPC, Future Publishing, Bauer, etc which assigns their copyright on commissioned jobs directly to the publications/publisher. Additionally, some freelancers and staffers also have similar contractual arrangements with their agencies/newspapers and some photographers have assistants they ask to shoot concerts for passes obtained in their names.
The majority of the ‘unreasonable’ agreements appear to be handed out by the USA bands touring the UK. The worst ones say that the band will own the copyright to the photographs and the photographer is then granted a licence for a one time editorial use only in connection with a review of the concert. Any photographer working for the NME who signs one of these agreements couldn’t give a monkeys what it says and couldn’t care less. IPC Syndication will re-sell the images irrespective of whatever agreements the photographer signs.
So, the whole situation is one big unholy mess which is perpetuating distrust and paranoia by the managers on behalf of their artists (thinking of lost income, others having a slice of their pie) on the the one hand and photographers on the other hand who have a general disregard for the agreements/contracts because everyone turns a blind eye.
I agree that the logical way forward is to have a dialogue with the managers and others such as PRs to reach some kind of common agreement between those organisations which represent the artists/managers and those which represent the photographers i.e. NUJ, BAPLA, etc to put in place a similar arrangement to that in operation by sports organisations both here and in the USA where there would be an approved list or group of photographers and agencies.
The mutual benefits to both the bands/artists and the photographers are obvious.