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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
"Newspaper journalists face lockout from football grounds"
Jim Colburn, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 11:44 AM on 08.05.11 |
| ->> Oh football not FOOTBALL..... phew... |
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Aaron Jaffe, Photographer, Student/Intern
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San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 10:35 PM on 08.06.11 |
| ->> Yea not throwball. Real football. I am interested in what the terms being disputed are. It just seems that there is a lot of talk about the rights restrictions, but not what they are. |
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Doug Pizac, Photographer
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Sandy | UT | USA | Posted: 1:20 AM on 08.07.11 |
| ->> FYI, I wrote to the email contact listed with the story asking what the disputed restrictions were -- an important piece of information that was left out. So far no response. I'll post what is sent to me if something is sent. |
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Chuck Liddy, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 2:21 AM on 08.07.11 |
| ->> yawn. across the pond. I seem to remember someone here in the states tried that a few years ago and they folded pretty quickly...yank their publicity (coverage) and they're screwed. you just have to play hardball with these wankers.....oh wait...sorry for the baseball analogy on a football....well....actually soccer thread. |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 5:33 AM on 08.07.11 |
| ->> Ah. Cross-country running and theatrics with a ball. |
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Jack Megaw, Photographer
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Pittsburgh / Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 9:27 AM on 08.07.11 |
->> My images of preseason matches out here might have just become a bit more valuable...
Something interesting is that the team photographers of both Chelsea and Manchester United (and I would assume other teams also) submit their images to Getty - so I wonder what would happen with those images? |
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Doug Pizac, Photographer
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Sandy | UT | USA | Posted: 10:55 AM on 08.07.11 |
->> I wrote to a friend who is a senior photographer with the UK's Press Association (which is our version of AP) and she linked me to some info on the dispute.
The league wants to create end user limitations in order to protect its licensing rights and revenue streams -- very similar to television contracts here in the U.S. Newspapers may cover games themselves or get images from the wires like Reuters and PA but cannot distribute or sublicense them any further. This end user limitation doesn't stop the publications from any normal editorial use of pictures, stories, etc.; instead it keeps them from flooding the Internet with coverage and remarketing them for commercial purposes -- commercial meaning relicensing, print sales, etc.
But that's minor compared to the big issue of blogs, Twitter and other pseudo live broadcasting of the game which essentially competes with the TV contracts. The disagreements center on how fast pictures, texts, etc. can appear online. The league wants a delay. Here in the U.S. for example, red carpet coverage of some award shows can be sent out asap because they're in a public atmosphere but inside images from the show itself can't go out until after the broadcast has ended -- thereby only allowing viewers to see who wins by watching the official broadcast which guarantees viewship.
The credentialing form has 16 pages of legal constraints which includes the amount of text and pictures that can published online and how soon they can appear.
Last year a league team banned photographers saying images could be licensed through its own photographers. The local paper illustrated the match in the form of cartoons. In 2008 Reuters, AP and AFP stopped coverage of Cricket Australia matches because of accreditation terms. And the year prior to that at the Rugby World Cup several agencies boycotted pre-tournament events over a media rights dispute resulting in one paper using images from the 2003 World Cup for illustrations.
Paying out millions of dollars for television broadcast rights is not new and the protection of those rights are fiercely defended. But now with publications going "multimedia" by doing their own video, posting galleries of dozens of images, Twittering, writing blogs, etc. in near real time, this new age coverage is crossing the line into the realm of TV broadcast coverage. And this is where the disputes lie and are going to continue to conflict as technology moves conventional print coverage more and more into live coverage.
And as always, it all comes down to the money. With publications and other outlets providing coverage that competes with TV, that means less television viewers because they now have alternate media options; fewer television viewers equates to a lesser share which equates to lower advertising rates which equates to lower revenues which equates to the multimillion dollar contracts being less valuable. And with the lesser value that means less money to the sports leagues who heavily rely on that revenue. Thus, the more multimedia and live coverage papers and wire services provide with no fees paid to the leagues to do so, the fewer dollars, pounds and euros the leagues can collect from TV. It isn't the editorial coverage that is threatening per se, it is the drop in money that occurs from having alternative/competitive resources -- exactly the same gripe newspapers are complaining about because their advertising revenue has been lost to alternative Internet sources. In the league case the shoe is on the other foot. The problem is that publications want it both ways; they want to provide competitive "first" coverage for the advertising/hits income without paying licensing fees which competes against television who do have to pay for the rights.
How would you feel and be able to compete if you had to pay a hefty fee to cover something while your competitor got to do so for free? Sort of like competing with soccer moms and little league dads with prosumer cameras who give away their pictures for free. Publishing and TV used to be totally different animals. Technology however has brought them together thereby creating this rights issue debate.
Next year's Summer Olympics in London is going to be interesting from the television rights stance. Still cameras are allowed in by papers, magazines, wire services, etc., but not video. However, today's still cameras now do video too. If the TV contracts are fiercely enforced, I can see some models of cameras being allowed into the venues but not others because of their video capability.
During the 2004 Olympics in Athens I showed a colleague who was covering the opening ceremonies how to create a multiple exposure with one shot -- open on bulb and cover the lens with cardboard moving it quickly back and forth for successive exposures. This was to record the raising of the Olympic torch arm from field level to its vertical position all in one frame. The one-chance shot worked nicely. The next day reps from NBC complained to the IOC that AP violated the broadcast restrictions by creating a sequenced image. The IOC investigated and I had to show them how the image was made. There was no violation of the restrictions in this case. One of the no-no edicts is that if you shoot something with your finger planted on the motordrive, you can't use all the images in the take consecutively because they would create a video-like sequence. That restriction is very clear. The multiple exposure frame got around that because it was one frame. Had multiple frames been shot and then Photoshopped together, then there might have been some enforcement issues.
Yes, next summer is going to be interesting and may lead to future camera model restrictions when covering NFL, MLB and other events here in the U.S. All it needs is a start somewhere as a means to protect and increase licensing money. |
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