Copyright/Ownership Issue and Sharing Photos

[flaw13]

I attended the National Gymnastics Championship last week in St. Paul, MN. Posted on all of the doors of the arena going in was the following....

All rights connected to the competition, athlete images, musical recordings and performances remain the sole possession of USA Gymnastics. Any images taken during any USA Gymnastics event are for personal use only. They may not be distributed or sold by any means, including posting on the Internet.

I do not make money from my pictures (yet :)), and have no intention to make money off of the pictures I took. I would like to know exactly what I am allowed to do with the pictures I took. I have posted a bunch on flickr for public consumption, and have actually gotten requests from the coaches of athletes to post more so they can see them. It just seems wrong that I could go to an event, that I have paid for, taken pictures through my own equipment, using my own knowledge and not be able to share them. Does anyone have any advice? Thanks....

[ssim]

Their disclaimer basically means they are for your own personal enjoyment.

Seems to me that there is more and more of this going on and the only thing that I can think of is the advent of the digital age. It makes it so much easier to distribute images these days.

I would probably live to the intent of the disclaimer until I had permission to do otherwise.

[tlc]

YES, I agree, its posted - and they will track you down. :shock:

be afraid... .be very afraid........

[cosworth]

Funny how in this day and age people actually discourage photography.

[tlc]

and when the olympic are here in london, i am going to publish everything i shoot. :lol:

[flaw13]

@tlc - That's the spirit!

I posted the same question on fredmiranda so some of this is a duplicate, but essentially I don't understand my rights. I can take the pictures, and enjoy them in private, but as soon as I enter the "public" I lose my right to them. So if I have a web site, with a password, can I share them with my friends? What if I consider all of the people on this forum my friends, can I share the pictures with them? Can I print out a picture and post it in a public place?

[Gerry@Rick]

Basically you are at the event on licence, i.e. bought the ticket. They have set the rules and have every right to pursue you if you infringe them. They are not stopping you taking photographs for your own pleasure but are safeguarding their and their members best interests as they see it. Often the official photographers at these events are either there by invitation or have paid for the privilege and considerably more than you have paid for your ticket so the Athletics people have a duty to protect the interests of those two groups. Again those people are there because they are known not to publish defamatory images, the orgnisers want the sport to be seen in the best light and they cannot be sure that anybody else will do the same.

[RossW]

@tlc - That's the spirit!

I posted the same question on fredmiranda so some of this is a duplicate, but essentially I don't understand my rights. I can take the pictures, and enjoy them in private, but as soon as I enter the "public" I lose my right to them. So if I have a web site, with a password, can I share them with my friends? What if I consider all of the people on this forum my friends, can I share the pictures with them? Can I print out a picture and post it in a public place?

If you go by the posted notice, when it comes to the pictures being seen in public, you never had any right to lose. You're just given permission to enjoy them in a private setting. It's sad that things have come to this state, but since you lose control of almost anything posted on the Internet -- even among your friends here -- I can understand the sponsors of the event taking such a strict stance. :(

I think Gerry has posted a very rational, concise assessment of the situation.

[sugarzebra]

Its an interesting dilemma for sure. I'm not certain that a lot of the 'posted rules' are even legal in the strictest sense of the word and therefore cannot be easily enforced. I guess it boils down to your need to publish something vs. the rights of event organizers, or associations, to protect their best interests (as noted by Gerry@Rick above). I was barred from taking a picture from the book depository window in Dallas because the view from the window (of the grassy knoll) is copyrighted....I argued briefly but the guard had a gun and was promising to confiscate my camera if I pressed the shutter release!

[cdifoto]

I was barred from taking a picture from the book depository window in Dallas because the view from the window (of the grassy knoll) is copyrighted....I argued briefly but the guard had a gun and was promising to confiscate my camera if I pressed the shutter release!

I don't think it's possible to copyright a view...AFAIK it has to be tangible or intellectual property to be copyrighted. A "view" is not intellectual property, and it's certainly not tangible. I would have kindly asked him to show me this law/regulation in print on an official document.

[flaw13]

Thank you for the thoughtful responses, and I am starting to understand the larger issue, even if I don't agree with the results.

For arguments sake, what if I develop one of my pictures that I took at the event, and hang it on my wall in my office, someone comes and takes a picture of the picture and posts it on the internet? While your first instinct might be to dismiss it as a problem, is there really any case there. The picture was taken of something I own, in a private setting, do I own the picture on the wall? Do I have rights to it then? Does the person who took the picture have rights to the picture they took?

[Gerry@Rick]

I was barred from taking a picture from the book depository window in Dallas because the view from the window (of the grassy knoll) is copyrighted....I argued briefly but the guard had a gun and was promising to confiscate my camera if I pressed the shutter release!

Were you inside their building and also likely to include some of the window and its frame? In that case they might have had a case if for example the picture had been turned into some kind of logo or image recognisable as representing them. If you were simply taking a picture of the knoll from outside the building and from space having public access the case might have been different but contentious if they have used it as an icon.

I was called away and had forgotten the term Registered Trademark. The rules are different from Copyright but people tend to bunch them altogether.

We have similar places over here (UK) where photography of some places is prohibited on grounds of national security and also the National Trust prohibits photography of their property while you are on their property. They have interests in raising money from post card and other sales to support their maintenance of the properties (They are a charity who maintain upkeep on a lot of our heritage buildings and countryside.) In most cases they don't actually stop you taking photographs for your own interest but usually one of the guides/wardens will warn you that they must not be sold for profit. I'm not sure how they would react if you included a picture of one of their houses in a much larger landscape and it just happened to be there and you were on public land and the remainder of the view was also generally available to open view.

[primoz]

This post is actual personal experience I had with International, European and National Gymnastics Federation. When I cover their events I had to sign their form if I wanted to get accreditation. It says clearly, that photos can be used only for newspaper or magazine through which I applied for accreditation (luckly for me, rules are a bit less strict for photo agency). If you don't sign that, you don't get accreditation. If you sign it and brake those rules you have to take care of consecuences... and yes even if someone was joking that they will track you down and be affraid.... if you break those things they actually will do exactly that. They don't joke about this. I still don't really understand why, since every other sport federation (even in sports way more popular then gymnastics) has much less strict rules about this, but things are like they are. So if you go there you obey their rules, otherwise don't go there.
PS: Signing their form for accreditation is same thing as accepting (yes buying) ticket, where rules are posted.... when you get that, you automaticaly accept those rules. If you don't, then just go shoot something else.

[Gerry@Rick]

I still don't really understand why, since every other sport federation (even in sports way more popular then gymnastics) has much less strict rules about this, but things are like they are. So if you go there you obey their rules, otherwise don't go there.


I noticed the change between ten and fifteen years ago. Prior to that the number of public idols at events like sports championships were attacked was very few. So the organisers were obliged to improve security. Then came the vetting of anyone who wanted entry, the bigger the event the more the scrutiny. Along with that came the authorised phtogoraphers and chargiong for their presence and that was when the commercial aspect started. Then papers became more salacious and more investigative and the resultant doping scandals etc., etc. I eventually got so cheesed off I opted out.

[LBaldwin]

If you want to know more about their accreditiaon rules go here.
http://www.usa-gymnastics.org/pr/accreditationpolicy.html

Les