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Arkansas HS Photo Rights 2
Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 2:06 AM on 09.16.07 |
->> Alicia,
News organizations have the right to sell reprints of their own work. How can you draw a legal difference between selling a newspaper and selling a portion of that newspaper?
News organizations also have the right to decide whether to make outtakes available to the public -- even for a fee. The last time I looked, the New York Times charged for a subscription.
"Commercial use" is very different from merely selling copies of a work. Commercial use would be using an image on a package of shampoo or using video footage in a commericial for a Chevy.
Editorial use or selective portions of editorial coverage need not be distributed for free to be legally non-commercial.
Sports and entertainment groups are inappropriately interfering with the editorial AND business operations of news organizations.
--Mark |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 8:52 AM on 09.16.07 |
->> Mark,
I agree with everything you say, except the last sentence.
Who is to decide what is "appropriate"? Don't run your business operations in a way that interferes with MY business operations?
I think Alicia is right on the mark. News organizations tend to think their 1st Amendment protections apply to their business operations.
Chuck |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 10:40 AM on 09.16.07 |
->> Chuck,
What a lot of people fail to see is the fact that whether you distribute a story or a photo documenting an event it is news. The first amendment guarantees the right to distribute information. There are no limitations stated in the amendment as to what format, quantity, or vehicle is used to deliver that news to the masses. The amendment says the distribution of content meant to inform the public can not be limited in any way.
There are two apparent lines of thoughts in our society. Photography has long been a way of communicating and documenting events. The emerging line of thought is the making available of images from an event as a commodity thanks to the explosion of event photography over the past five years or so. While there are massive attempts to commodify the final product, a print, even event photographers are acting as journalist and are recording, documenting a moment in time that will not likely reoccur in the exact same manner ~ and therefore are in fact photojournalists (regardless of the quality of their product).
Limiting access/coverage and the right to distribute content from an event to the masses is unconstitutional. |
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Mark Peters, Photographer
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Highland | IL | USA | Posted: 11:26 AM on 09.16.07 |
->> Clark -
You're correct - the first amendment does not ennumerate such details. The verbiage is quite brief. Which keeps the attorneys and scholars employed. As with most constitutional issues - it is the matter of heated debate over intent.
In addition to what you have indicated, it also does not convey a right upon the press which trumps the privacy rights of private entities participating in private activities. The press clearly has no right to trespass upon my private property and invade my home - regardless of how newsworthy whatever they may gather would be. They may not invade the jury room, corporate board room, or the bedroom.
I do not believe there is much argument that these associations have the right to limit access to their events and venues- they clearly do - through the sale of tickets to those wishing to view the event and credentials to those wishing to record the history of the event.
While I disagree with the policy, I strongly disagree with the suggestion that a private association placing conditions upon those entities which they allow access to their events is unconstitutional. It may be bad business practice in the end (presuming a press boycott), but it certainly is not unconstitutional.
From a very basic, fundamental standpoint - is there a real difference between them restricting the activities of those to whom they grant access and their ability to pick and choose who they provide access to in the first place? Do you believe it is unconstitional for them to limit access to anyone to record the history of the event? |
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Ronnie Montgomery, Photographer
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 12:27 PM on 09.16.07 |
| ->> Restricting access is legitimate. Demanding that news organizations, or freelancers who represent news organizations, turn over their copyright as a condition of access is not legitimate. |
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Darren Whitley, Photographer
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Maryville | MO | USA | Posted: 12:36 PM on 09.16.07 |
->> The constitution governs the only the government's infringement upon freedom of the press, but it does not govern non-governmental organizations infringement upon the press.
It doesn't guarantee freedom of press, it only stipulates that the government shall not interfer with that freedom.
Although it's free, it's handicapped by laws serving other interests of society. |
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William Luther, Photographer
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San Antonio | TX | USA | Posted: 12:45 PM on 09.16.07 |
->> I think, unfortunately, that none of this is absolutely black and white.
For example...
While I understand that Little League and the Boy Scouts and the local bowling league, are truly private organizations, I have a hard time saying that the AHSAA or the UIL here in Texas are truly private.
While the organizations themselfs are often times organized as 501(3)c corporations, they are playing in publicly funded facilities on public school property with public school athletes. While I don't think this encumbers the organizations to open themselves up to anyone and everyone that wants to do anything, it does muddy the waters.
Compare UIL to the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) here in Texas. UIL is the organization for public school while TAPPS is for private schools. I think TAPPS would have a much better arguement for doing just about anything they want to..they are, after all, privately funded.
But the UIL is another beast and the journalism issues, and access issues and contract issues and business practice issues being raised now are an example of how complicated this issue is. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 1:12 PM on 09.16.07 |
->> Chuck,
That's why I chose the word "inappropriate" rather than "illegal" or "unconstitutional."
Since there is, as I implied, no legal seperation betwee publishing a news picture in conjunction with a written news story and publishing the outtakes from the main photos, restricting the licensing of those images for non-commericial use (selling reprints) extends into the constitutional arena.
I know this sounds like splitting hairs, but the law is based upon such split hairs. This one is too important to ignore.
--Mark |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 4:02 PM on 09.16.07 |
->> Mark, Clark, et al -
Darren has it right. Read the first amendment: it says "Congress shall make no law..." It does not guarantee the right to make a profit, to charge for "news," or to infringe on others' property interests in the name of the public's "right to know."
In fact, the "news" industry has been in the entertainment business for decades, mainly because they have had a natural monopoly on information distribution (the old "buy their ink by the barrell" power). Reporting on sports isn't "news" - it's merely part of a commercial sports enterprise. News organizations were a welcome and willing participant. Teams would get free publicity that helped them buy tickets. Now they don't need newspapers for that free publicity.
Now that news organizations are no longer necessary for information distribution, they are trying to parlay the traditional advantages in terms of access to news & public information into a commercial advantage over competing organizations.
Does the Washington Post have the right to reprint New York Times stories and call them "news"? If the NY Times can control its intellectual property, then competing organizations can control theirs.
If there's a hair to be split here, it's in thinking of the event photographer selling photos as, in fact, a "news" outlet. Perhaps not a very good one, but his photos are an historic record of an event. Isn't that what a published news account is?
Chuck |
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Tom Ewart, Photographer
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Bentonville | AR | USA | Posted: 6:20 PM on 09.16.07 |
->> Mark,
You were one of the authors of the NPPA's Best Practices Document a few years ago, weren't you? It was a nice gesture but in my opinion 6 years too late, after the AP's Stringers contract was put into action. If everyone would have listened to the wise sage Rick Rickman and other who knew this would be bad for the industry, we probably wouldn't be in this situation.
After the AP was successful in stomping on the independent or freelance photographer's ability to make a living and not be able to hold onto the work that they created, shortly followed by stock photography houses decided that would be a good move for them also, and we saw that market fall as well.
Back to the issue of selling prints...I'm really confused. Is there a third type of speech out there? Or by your definition, does all the work done by portrait studios out fall into the realm of editorial photographs as well; after all they are just selling prints too. (DISCLAIMER: Not meant to demean either editorial photographers or portrait studios.) You are just going to have a hard time convincing me that the selling of a print to a parent, no matter by who, is a function of editorial speech, even if taken by a photojournalist on a mission to gather editorial content. It is nice to by (or Buy) product, or ancillary usage, but not editorial necessarily.
Every photo ever taken (as long as you don't really blow the exposure) describes something visually, so just because it conveys information, or reports something, doesn't make it editorial speech either.
I do consider myself an editorial photographer, and I think that Steve Fine & Porter Binks at SI and others at 100's of publications across the country do also, but I know that my work in this sense is not purely editorial and do not claim that it is. Just as you at a newspaper shouldn't either, but I know that there is pressure from your bosses and the publisher at your paper to make as much money as possible for them and this is an important issue to them on that level. By the same token it's probably cheaper to hire freelancers to take photos than to have full-time staffers (but don't let them know that or you'll be ask to work without a staff too!!!). It's kind of like a high profile AP staffer said to me one time, "Once a good stringer, always a good stringer." meaning if you do a good job, are reliable and available all the time, why would the AP need to hire you full time--they got the material covered--by you--no need to hire you and make you full-time. You don't have to buy the cow if you're getting the milk for free--hang in there with me it's one of those Arkansas sayings.
Hey, I do publish them by definition by putting them on the web and probably several of the photos will find their way into high school and college sports magazines and publications. If some kid from an Arkansas High School has committed to coming to a university near you, wouldn't it be nice to have a neutral resource for good images from our little state... feel free to put my contact info in you contact file now. Maybe we'll have another Gatorade Player of the Year, like we had in Mitch Mustain two years ago or one goes on to be President--like good ole cousin Bill.
(DISCLAIMER: not really my cousin--just everyone in Arkansas is related... at least that the rumor) then the material will indeed become editorial.
Mark, I do think you have confused the definition of Commercial Speech with that of Commercial Photography or even more so the use of a photo in advertising. Mark, I do respect your viewpoint, we just look at this issue a little differently.
Not everyone will understand what, why or even how this move by the AAA to work with me on this project took place, but I am certain the AAA and I both feel that it will be a positive move for high school sports in the state. There are probably very few people around that know the history of this issue in Arkansas or how it will go, or even which direction it might have gone if someone didn't step up to the plate here.
I've been involved in many sports that have turned the corner and started trying to control their intellectual property. Many have done it in a very offensive way to working photographers, editorially or otherwise. I hope that my relationship with the AAA will allow me to be involved in that evolution to some degree, if it does go down that path to be better in that photographers may have a voice or at least be available for their input on issues. This community will be a big part of anything like that I have questions about.
It is interesting to kind of be involved with such a spirited debate, but this post is not meant to inflame, although I know it will. I hope my levity in this post about a very serious discussion is not taken in the wrong way. I am glad to see that there are still those out there that are passionate about the business of photography and wish us all well in the coming years and hope that we all find clients who appreciate our talents and services in markets that can support our craft.
Tom Ewart |
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Darren Whitley, Photographer
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Maryville | MO | USA | Posted: 6:28 PM on 09.16.07 |
->> Thing is schools do not have to permit entry to media.
Many states have laws that privatize campuses even though they are publicly funded.
I'm not familiar with this myself, but if you visit with a veteran teacher, they can begin to elaborate.
Even courthouses have laws restricting media. |
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Michelle Posey, Photographer
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Little Rock | AR | United States | Posted: 8:04 PM on 09.16.07 |
->> Mark,
I love reading your column every month ... sometimes it's about the only thing I read in New Photographer any more ... and I'd like to see you address this issue from the other side.
A couple of years ago many editorial photographers were told that no longer would it be sufficient to turn in 2 or 3 or 5 or 6 photos from an event. We would be expected to turn in as many as possible. These photos went up on the company's website. Many times, a commercial photographer was trying to make a living photographing the same event.
The newspaper sells the photos just as the commercial photographer does, without the added burden of having to pay for a staff to shoot the event (they're already shooting it for the newspaper). In other words, this is pretty much free and clear revenue for the newspaper. I'm pretty sure none of the photographers who were asked to shoot, edit and caption more photos got offered any sort of additional compensation beyond their regular paltry annual raise. For the newspaper, I have heard that the contrary is true, that Web photo sales is one of their most lucrative ventures to date.
I have gone head-to-head as a news photographer with event photographers here in Arkansas who were trying to make a living, and I hate doing that. Not that anyone has ever been less than gracious, but it makes me sick to think of their sales being undercut by a big media company who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, and is using their photo staff to launch a business venture that holds no additional compensation for the people who make that venture possible (the photographers).
Web photos, multimedia, video: I enjoy learning and doing things like this, but photographers are increasingly providing more services to their employers and receiving zero additional compensation -- even when those services net huge amounts of additional revenue for the newspaper. I don't really see this as a first amendment issue. I see it as a money issue for both sets of photographers ... and since I think both are getting shafted, I'd rather see us come together on this.
You're the money guy, and if you've already commented on this post the link; I'd love to see it.
BTW, I do agree that the newspaper should have the right to post as many photos as they want of an event. It's just when sales of non-published photos enter the picture that I think things get a little questionable. |
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Michelle Posey, Photographer
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Little Rock | AR | United States | Posted: 8:05 PM on 09.16.07 |
| ->> And yes, that should be "News Photographer." Too many edits can be not such a good thing. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 12:37 AM on 09.17.07 |
->> Tom,
If you can get the AAA to agree to give you an exclusive, more power to you. But unless you confiscate all cameras at the door (including those belonging to parents,) you really can't enforce it. You can stop people from marketing on-site, but you can't dictate to others what they may do with their own property. The images taken by people at these events belong to those individuals and, in the case of PJs, their employers.
The agreement is between you and the AAA. Unless you get third parties to agree to your arrangement, you have no power to enforce it.
Newspapers are in the business of gathering information and selling copies of it to the public. Do you presume to be able to draw a distinction between selling a copy of an image on newsprint and selling a copy of one on photographic paper?
In fact, there is no such legal distinction and the right to engage in selling such images is a right guaranteed to all. You can't write an agreement that forces others to agree with your point of view. They have to explicitly sign onto it.
The only way you can enforce such a thing is to deny access to anybody who does not agree to behave as you want them to.
BTW, you never did answer my earlier question: I'm interested in hearing the details of how you envision how you will "strengthen action photography as a business and open up opportunities for photographers across the state of Arkansas."
--Mark |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 10:03 AM on 09.17.07 |
->> Mark,
So if I get a audio recorder into a concert, seeing as it wasn't confiscated at the door I should be able to sell the tape on my website, or eBay, right? Given your arguments, can a newspaper capture the first 3 songs worth of audio while the photographer is shoot and sell 30 prints of Kelly Clarkson AND the sound track that goes with it? Do you think that channel 5 will sell the video of those first 3 songs on
their website?
Why can Ms. Clarkson's label own her performance but the AAA can't own a performance that they are sponsoring?
This is the kind of p*ssing match that continues to spiral. The next step is simple to see. Event company's will get their logos or names plastered everywhere so that they are part of every photo that runs. Backboards, decals on helmets, 10' tyvek backgrounds for the awards ceremony, it's really quite simple, use the fact that the newspapers are going to publish images and get my name on them somehow. It will come to that, lets face it no one is going to PS a logo off a helmet or a repeating pattern off a backdrop. Every press conference for the Patriots have either a Dunk's logo or one of the other sponsors running on a screen behind him. To a small degree I agree with you Mark, I may not be able to beat them. So now the question becomes how to bend it to my favor. There was absolute stunned silence from the marketing rep when she called to get my ad this year and I sprung the plan on her.
I've already priced what it will cost to have a 10x100' roll of tyvek with my logo printed on it large enough that it will hold detail even at f2.8. The price was about the same as a 2 week ad run in the 'big' paper.
....The only way you can enforce such a thing is to deny access to anybody who does not agree to behave as you want them to.....
Or use them to our advantage. |
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Joe Cavaretta, Photographer
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Ft Lauderdale | FL | USA | Posted: 12:15 PM on 09.17.07 |
->> Seems to me the problem with cutting out a traditional long-standing arrangement (newspaper photo resales) in order to make a business model work, is the opening of oneself to becoming a victim of the same practice. ie; most of the state preps photo services I see here are small operations. So, what's to stop the Democrat-Gazette to step in next year and say, "we are better equipped and better staffed, and have better name recognition and a bigger website with more hits to handle this business for you, we just need you to keep everybody else out and we'll handle sales for you."
Wire Image, anyone?
Is that the road we want to go down with high schools, jr. high schools, school plays (lots of parents there) band practice, first day of school.. wherever there's a buck to be made? Why should we allow student photographers to shoot yearbook photos when we could be selling all those outtakes?
Most of us who are homeowners pay a huge chunk of change every year to fund public schools in our home towns, and I for one, if I had a kid playing, would raise holy hell if I cold not bring in my camera because the school district signed an "exclusive," with some agency.
Yes, as someone pointed out here, universities are publicly funded, but they are not governed by school board members that face elections every couple of years. |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 12:20 PM on 09.17.07 |
->> I wrote: "Limiting access/coverage and the right to distribute content from an event to the masses is unconstitutional."
M. Peters responded: "I do not believe there is much argument that these associations have the right to limit access to their events and venues..."
Sorry folks, only half my brain was working at the time. You are right Mark, associations and even private individuals can limit or restrict access.
The point that I wanted to get across and was better stated Mr. Loundy when he wrote: "Since there is, as I implied, no legal seperation betwee publishing a news picture in conjunction with a written news story and publishing the outtakes from the main photos, restricting the licensing of those images for non-commericial use (selling reprints) extends into the constitutional arena." and "In fact, there is no such legal distinction and the right to engage in selling such images is a right guaranteed to all."
I think this argument is moot because the state associations are trying avoid what could become a public battle as in Louisiana with newspapers, and at least in Wisconsin and Illinois the effort is to allow newspapers to continue to offer reprints. |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 1:01 PM on 09.17.07 |
->> ...I think this argument is moot because the state associations are trying avoid what could become a public battle as in Louisiana with newspapers, and at least in Wisconsin and Illinois the effort is to allow newspapers to continue to offer reprints.....
Clark I think that you are half right. It's not the public battle that they want to avoid, it's burning a few 100K on legal fees. Sooner or later one of the national players will bid in, once that happens and the legal resources of say, a CBS, or a Getty, or PSO, are brought to the party, then and only then will we have a real stage set.
What cracks me up is how oblivious some people here are to the workings of the real world when it comes to schools. Lifetouch has won several contracts in the schools around me. Part of their deal with the schools is that only, I REPEAT ONLY, portraits taken by Lifetouch can be published in the yearbook. They don't do it at all schools, just those that want the biggest slice of the pie and guess what, it's stuck. Public high schools, yearbooks funded by the students/taxpayers and because the deal from LT is so strong for the school, parents can jump up and down all they want but it hasn't changed anything.
Joe if the Gazette has the staffing to cover ALL the sports and at least one of each of the JV AND freshman games too. Then by all means BID for the job. Most papers can barely cover ONE complete basketball game start to finish. All of the shooters that I know around here time things to cram in 2 or 3 games. It's shoot shoot shoot chimp chimp chimp got the image then run to the next school and do it again. Don't get me wrong the image(s) that these guys turn in are great, but it's hardly the same thing as showing up with a 'pre-request' list(s) from parents, yearbooks, and the schools web admin. If there is a paper out there that wants to try I would be the first person to welcome them and encourage them to bid. |
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Sam Santilli, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Philippi | WV | USA | Posted: 1:12 PM on 09.17.07 |
->> A few posts stated that this is all about moeny grubbing by the AAA. Well, the flip side is that if newpapers were loosing money selling images beyond what is used in the paper for editorial use, this thread would be moot.
This is not a costitutional issue, but comes down to cold hard cash.
Mark, please explain to me how a paper selling images after an event is news worthy and constitutes editorial usage? When does the sale of said image stop being editorial and becomes pure commerce? |
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William Luther, Photographer
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San Antonio | TX | USA | Posted: 5:41 PM on 09.17.07 |
->> Sam,
I think Mark Loundy answered that question in a previous post.
Selling the image for use in an ad for Chevy trucks or putting it on a Coke can makes it commerical use.
Selling the image itself is not commerical use. Newspapers have been selling the image printed on newsprint for as long as there has been technology to get pictures into the newspaper.
News outlets have been for-profit businesses since the founding of the country. The courts have long recognized that making a profit allows those organizations to contiue their news gathering efforts the next day.
Using the content we create to make a profit for the furtherance of our news gathering efforts and to promote our news organizations has been a long-standing, court-recognized right. That is why, for example, despite resitrictions on selling pictures taken at NBA games, newspapers can put thier front page on a t-shirt and sell that. That product relates to and promotes the newsgathering efforts of the publication.
That's why newspapers can take a picture they make at that same game and put it on a billboard or on a coffee mug that promotes the newspaper's sports coverage. But take that picture and sell it to a trading card company for use on their cards and you have crossed the line. Sell the picture to the trading card company president to put on his wall and you are back to acceptable use. |
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Michelle Posey, Photographer
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Little Rock | AR | United States | Posted: 9:01 PM on 09.17.07 |
->> "Using the content we create to make a profit for the furtherance of our news gathering efforts and to promote our news organizations has been a long-standing, court-recognized right. That is why, for example, despite restrictions on selling pictures taken at NBA games, newspapers can put their front page on a t-shirt and sell that. That product relates to and promotes the newsgathering efforts of the publication. "
William, could you please cite the specific case where a ruling was made on web sales of photo "outtakes"?
What I don't understand is how newspapers will fight a big battle to prevent photos not published in the paper from being released and then turn around and offer a bunch of outtakes for sale on a website if they think they can make some money on it.
I don't really have a dog in this hunt (another Arkansas expression) since I don't work for a newspaper any more or do HS prep photos (yet) but I have always thought it was questionable -- legally questionable -- whether this was part of legitimate news gathering. I'm not a media lawyer, so I really can't say.
Our discussion on this message board may not have a conclusion, but I will bet that someday this is going to be decided, and it's going to be decided by a judge, and newspaper editors are probably not going to like the outcome. My guess is, either we will have to destroy all unused outtakes or be subject to providing everything we ever shoot to any court that wants them. And then, bye-bye to any serious documentary projects. |
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William Luther, Photographer
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San Antonio | TX | USA | Posted: 10:37 PM on 09.17.07 |
->> Michelle,
I think the way you phrased the question is flawed and I think the way you are trying to define words aren't the way they are recognized legally.
First I think we need to look at the implied way you are defining "published" and to do this I think we have to recognize that newspaper websites are news delivery systems just like the printed page. But they are not the SAME as the printed page.
As I pointed out in a previous post on this thread, newspaper websites offer lots of other additional content on their websites - not just pictures - that is not in the printed page. They offer extended interviews, they offer audio, they offer Soundslides-style slideshows, they offer animated graphics, they offer speech transcripts and they offer sports galleries as well as numerous other types of web-delivered content. All of this content, as far as I am aware, is afforded the same legal protections as content printed on news print because this is "published" material.
I also think your implied definition of "outtake" doesn't fit with the way the courts have recognized that concept. I think outtake is an industry term. I think courts have traditionally recognized published and unpublished materials. To describe the materials in any other terms simply confuses the issue.
Now with all this said, I want to point out that I don't always agree with how these things work out.
I'm not a fan of newspapers publishing every frame a photographer takes (and I know there are newspapers out there that do that) but it seems reasonable that a newspaper should be able to publish a web gallery of images from an event. I'm also not a fan of event photographers trying to lock everyone out of sporting events but I recognize their right to make a living. And I'm not a fan of high school athletic associations trying to turn themselves into the NBA or the NFL but I recognize their right to have some control over how their organizations and events are run.
I'll get off my soap box now... |
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Aaron Rhoads, Photographer
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McComb | MS | USA | Posted: 10:09 AM on 09.18.07 |
->> I can't believe all the lawyers we have at ss!
I'm with Mark on this one. I won't sign. If I'm not allowed to cover the game...then their won't be a photo..
and the state AA will get an earful from the local schools and parents. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 10:14 AM on 09.18.07 |
->> Sam,
It's up to the law to prove that it is NOT editorial. And that runs smack into the First Amendment.
Michelle,
I higly doubt that there has been such a specific ruling. The priciple is too basic in law for such a thing to come to trial.
--Mark |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 11:22 AM on 09.18.07 |
->> Aaron,
Unless your are planning to move or do some serious driving I think that you are safe from the AAA policy. One more point, unless you freelance a game, there's nothing for YOU to sign, media credentials generally are applied for and signed by management at the 'media outlet'.
Here is one interesting excerpt from the policy/bulletin
" AAA member schools were polled during the spring Activity District meetings and 90 percent strongly suggested that the AAA consider making a change in its media policy. "
90% ASKED for this to happen. That means the whether it was the AD or the principal or a member of the school committee 90% are behind imposing such limits. |
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Aaron Rhoads, Photographer
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McComb | MS | USA | Posted: 11:27 AM on 09.18.07 |
->> Eric,
Louisiana tried it last year..now Ark.. both border states. how long will it be before the MHSAA tries to pull a stunt like this? |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 12:05 PM on 09.18.07 |
->> Aaron,
I'd guess not long at all. I would expect that the majority of states will implement similar policies. I think that the most telling thing, and something that I missed the first time around, is the part about 90% of the schools being on-board and asking for this. Think about that for a minute. What it says is that 90% of the schools suggested the restrictions, not that some company walked into the AAA office and asked for it. Sounds like this was horizon since last spring. |
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Jeffrey Haderthauer, Photographer
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Wichita Falls | TX | USA | Posted: 12:21 PM on 09.18.07 |
| ->> If I were a parent, I'd be none too happy about this. The situation may be different in other states, but in Texas the company contracted by the UIL can't be putting out anything good. I have been to several state championship events, and the 'official' UIL photographer usually has been hired for the day, has no sports experience, and is shooting with a DReb, or a D40 with a 50-300 f/whatever zoom. Do we really think they are putting out a good product when equipment like that is being used? I've looked, they aren't. So the only way that images are getting sold by this company is because there is no competition, except from an athlete's local paper. I have seen the images- I would never pay for them. Ever. Maybe Texas just needs a different company doing it. |
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Mark Peters, Photographer
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Highland | IL | USA | Posted: 2:00 PM on 09.18.07 |
->> Eric,
The quote you provided only shows that 90% asked for change. It does not say that 90% supported this specific change and it certainly does not support the notion that the respondents "suggested the restrictions." Were those taking the poll told that this is exactly what was to be implemented?
Without knowing exactly what the policy was beforehand, it's hard to gauge exactly what this poll is measuring - was the prior policy such a mess that the respondents were merely suggesting that something different had to happen? |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 2:16 PM on 09.18.07 |
->> "90% asked for change."
I doubt that any AD specifically asked for a change since they wouldn't likely benefit directly in any way to begin unless there was an opportunity for revenue sharing for the school.
This is conjecture, but after the initial approach by the vendor, likely the topic was brought up by the AAA in an informal poll and the school official was asked to respond after a discussion that probably didn't represent both sides evenly. Most likely the AD or school official did not understand the implications for the parents as well as the vendors and media who may provide coverage through the year. |
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Alan Look, Photographer
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Bloomington | IL | United States | Posted: 2:43 PM on 09.18.07 |
->> "Most likely the AD or school official did not understand the implications for the parents as well as the vendors and media who may provide coverage through the year."
And maybe for the school itself. How many fields and gyms do you visit that have banners hanging with the local media's name on them? They don't get put on the fence/wall for free... |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 3:07 PM on 09.18.07 |
| ->> Alan not one single field, gym, or for that matter not even to buy a simple 2 line ad in a program. I have the 2007 pop warner program for one of the leagues that I shoot. The program is 52 pages and not one of the 2 or 3 newspapers that are read in the region have an ad. This past summer I shot the towns FIRST All Star tournament when all was said and done one of the towns teams won the championship. Seeing as it was a first I gave the league permission to use the full res file for the papers. The league's VP tried 3 times to get someone to even return a call. In the end they had zero interest. |
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Alan Look, Photographer
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Bloomington | IL | United States | Posted: 3:48 PM on 09.18.07 |
->> Eric, That's a stark contrast from here. The rurals aren't tagged as much, but in the twin cities, there are at least 2 media outlet banners on each fence and wall. I even see it in the college venues.
I'm sure it varies greatly across the country. |
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