high school football and photo rights

[santer36]

i am doing highschool football pictures for my old high school football team. it was under my assumption i was

able to sell the prints from their website that they are using them for. well after 4 weeks of shooting the pics

they are telling me we have to wait till the end of the year and only ask parents of the kids that are in the

pictures because none of the kids signed anything saying that i would take their pics. the school is afraid that

i may be breaking the law if i make a profit from the pictures I took!

does anyone know the rule about this? or know where i can direct the school to look to let them know they can

safely put a link to my online ordering photo gallery?

thank you

[nick_davis]

Without model release forms signed by the player's parents you may be in a tough situation. In collegiate and pro sports, the players give up their rights to any financial gain from photos made of them while playing because those rights belong to the governing organization, e.g. NCAA or NFL. I would not piss off any parents because you never know what kind of contacts they may have and they might be able to give you a lot of trouble.

[daverhaas]

Joey -

 

I assume that you're trying to sell the photos to parents and not to a magazine or commercial account.

 

A lot of schools now put a waiver into their paperwork for this type of thing. It's typically an opt out or opt in release.

 

Since they want you to wait til the end of the season to put them up on your site, chances are there is something else at play here. Perhaps a non-compete with the photographer that does team and individual shots. Or perhaps just a paranoid school board or athletic director.

 

Whether you're breaking any laws or not may be debatable. I believe that at worst a parent might have a civil action against you for publishing a photo of their minor child without permission. Or even worse, if you accidentally sold a photo to a parent who has a restraining order in place against them (then you might be in criminal trouble.).

 

Some advice -

 

1. Work out a deal with the school - Offer to give them a donation of a portion of the sales in return for the rights to take photos and sell them on-line.

 

2. Typically schools own the trademark of their logos, not the copyright of the images - You own the copyright, they own the trademark. Which means that technically you can't sell an image with their logo visible without their permission.

 

3. Provide them with a release - do a google search for the wording to use.

 

4. Don't just keep on publishing them to the web without working through the school on this.

 

Dave

[santer36]

thank you very much for your responses. i just re-read what i wrote and i see how you may think that i have had the images online. actually i haven't but i was about to buy an online gallery in order to make it easy to sell the prints. i will however get back with the school again and see what we can do about it. i did already let the booster club know that i will give a dollar or 2 for every order i get.

thanks guys. (and good point about the logo!)

[daniel_harris]

Dave has hit it pretty well. Also many schools contract with photographers to shoot their action for yearbooks and that contract usually includes rights to sell those action shots to parents. I have a couple of my high school students that work for such a photographer and have shot other schools rather than their own. They shoot our school too for our yearbook and paper, they just don't get paid for that.

 

Our district and activities director have talked about a website maxpreps that sells photographs. The site is contracted with the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) for playoff action. Our district is wondering what the legalities for regular season games are.

[craig_gillette]

The school, or at least the person you are dealing with seems confused (at best).

 

A school, like any property owner, has the right to control access to the property and to control activities on the property. Schools very often will enter into commercial agreements with professional photographers with varying degrees of contractually enforceable exclusivity. Schools also operate under state laws and board/district policies as to how business and fund-raising activities are conducted.

 

Students/parents can restrict the use of the students' images for commercial and promotional uses and can also restrict inclusion in press releases, etc. However, for that to be accomplished, it also means student participation in a variety of activities would have to be restricted as well.

 

In general terms there are no legal reasons that establish a blanket prohibition of selling people's images. People have the right to control the use of their image commercially. They typically can't control the use editorially or artistically if the image was taken where they have no expectation of privacy.

 

The problem you have is that while they may have tenuous actual legal means to control those pictures, if you don't comply with their wishes, you may find that they will no longer cooperate, you wouldn't get special sideline or practice access, etc. They could easily require you and the booster club to adhere scrupulously to policies regarding fund-raising and business activities, including whatever "permission" hoops are in place, etc.

 

If you expect to enter an actual agreement with the booster club, etc., then contact the booster club and/or athletic director and follow the rules. It could well be that as someone has suggested, there may be other contrtacts or obligations in place.

[dave_hoffmann]

Create your own website and sell them at will.

[daverhaas]

Dave Hoffman -

 

Not good advice, especially if the school - unknown to the booster club - has a contract with MaxPreps or another photographer / shop. Most of those firms have lawyers in place for such instances and Joey would be lucky to just get a cease and desist order in that case.

 

Not to mention the goodwill that he would burn by going against their wishes. As Craig pointed out they could make life difficult for him in terms of getting access to the team.

 

Dave