Please Help.. A Question About Selling Images

[DonMPhoto]

I was recently at an AMA Supermoto (motorcycle race) and got some nice shots. I would love to sell some of them on-line. My question is...can I without the riders consent? The photo's are of well-known racers some with names visible on their Jerseys... all with numbers visible and many with Team names and logos (ie..Troy Lee Designs Honda) visible.

Can I legally sell these?

[naqs]

Yes... they are of your work and you have copyright to the images so yes you can sell them (I think)

[gkas]

Most likely not. I would bet that with your paid entry fee you agreed that you would only photograph for private use. The answer would be different (maybe) if you had credentials. Even then I think there are major restrictions on using the images for commercial sale.

[Vegas Poboy]

Was you contracted by the event to Photograph?
Do you have a commercial contract with any of the riders or sponsors?
If not most likely no you can't sell them unless you sell them to a publishing company for editorial usage.

Even with press credentials you have limits on how you use the photos taken at an event.
At a recent NBA event I was covering I was bored and decided to read all of the fine print on my credentials and discovered that even though I have consent to shoot and cover the event my images could only be used for editorial publications nothing else and the NBA still had some rights to the images.

[ssim]

Yes... they are of your work and you have copyright to the images so yes you can sell them (I think)

This is bad advice. Yes they are his work and yes he owns the copyright but one cannot just go selling images of persons without their consent.

I think the advice by Vegas is very much valid in this case.

I had the opportunity to shoot Celine Dion at a private concert that she gave for a company that I worked at. While I had some great shots that I was very happy with I could not do anything with them short of give friends a copy for free. If you are trying to sell enlargements online and the only way to skirt the law is to deem them editorial content and I don't know how you could structure this one when doing it this way.

[TeeJay]

Two points - 1) (Which has already been mentioned elsewhere) The event "conditions of entry" more likely than not prohibit the sale of photographic images of participants 2) Aside from this, if you can recognise any of the riders then the answer is NO - unless you have a release form signed by each rider UNLESS that image is used to simply illustrate a news item.

TJ

[PhotosGuy]

Even with press credentials you have limits on how you use the photos taken at an event. I think it depends on who you sell them to & what they use them for, depending on the restrictions imposed by the event organizers. Generally...
Sell to the team for any use? Yes.
Sell to the rider for personal use? Yes.
Sell to anyone else to use for editorial purposes? Yes
Sell to anyone else to use for advertizing purposes? No

OTOH, I suspect that you can sell them to anyone for thier personal scrapbook, until you're told to stop.

Best to check The event "conditions of entry" with a (C) lawyer, but don't expect a clear-cut answer. ;)

[naqs]

Most likely not. I would bet that with your paid entry fee you agreed that you would only photograph for private use. The answer would be different (maybe) if you had credentials. Even then I think there are major restrictions on using the images for commercial sale.

Oh you did not have a photography pass... In which case yes I agree with gkas

[DonMPhoto]

Actually I did have credentials and was there shooting for a local magazine. Guess I should have mentioned that to start with.. still it sounds like the overwhelming feeling is that I can't sell them.. which is what I suspected.

Thanks for the responses.

[vwpilot]

You can absolutely NOT sell them.

I shoot pro motorsports and have been through this with one of the bodies in securing a license to sell.

At these events, you own your photos, but you do not own the images of the riders, the track, the sponsors, or the logos of the sanctioning body. They all have a right as to what you can do with their images.

If you wanted to sell images, you would written permission from EVERY identifiable entity in the photo. In other words, you would need a release from the rider, the manufacturer of his bike, any and all sponsors visible on his bike, any and all sponsors that have signs at the track visible, the track if there is some identifiable mark (such as the esses at Road Atlanta) or their logo in the shot, and the sanctioning body of the event, in this case the AMA.

Now, there are some things that can be wrapped up into one. What I mean is that the riders, sponsors and tracks generally sign a release with the sanctioning body through their entrance fees releasing their rights to the sancitoning body for uses such as prints and other commercial uses. In some cases, the sanctioning body could give you a release for sales and wrap all the others up in that so you dont have to get everyones permission, but this can be very difficult to get.

This is what happened this past year with a group of regular shooters in IMSA. We were able to purchase a rights package from IMSA that allows us to sell prints to the general public of anyhing we shoot during the season, releasing us from having to get permission from drivers, tracks and sponsors individually.

So, if you are really interested, start with the AMA and try to work something out with them, but be prepared to pay for the license, just as people need to pay the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, etc. for licenses to sell products with the images of those sports.

So bottom line, you cannot sell your images for commercial use.

The one thing you can do is sell anything you want for editorial purpose without any release. This is how mags and even news websites can show images and pay photographers for the publication rights.

So editorial - OK
Commercial (which is about anything else) - Not OK.

[naqs]

What if you are head photographer of the event?? and it is the sponser with his logo in the background can you sell them to him

[PhotosGuy]

You need to check with the event organizers for the specifics.

[naqs]

ok... just wondering

[IndyJeff]

VwPiolt is right about not being able to sell the images except for editorial use. However, if you were credentialed the agreement most likely states you can only sell to the organization you were credentialed to shoot for.
So if your there shooting for XYZ magazine, you can not sell to ABC magazine.

If you sell the images and they are used in an advertising manner, you will be a defendant in a lawsuit I guarentee.

To address the side of it about selling images for private use here and there to the occasional fan, most of the sporting organizations realize that every Tom, Dick and Harry with a camera and a credential will sell a few prints here and there. There is no cost effective way to stop it but, what they are wanting to stop is people from marketing in a full blown way the images they have the rights to.

[vwpilot]

Generally selling back to a participant or sponsor of the event is not an issue. However, you do have to take care with selling to sponsors as you dont want a sponsor such as Castrol to use a photo with a rider sponsored by Mobil in the photo, the Mobil sponsored rider would likely have a real problem with that.

If its for a legit commercial use, most of the time the buyer/sponsor and/or sanctioning body can facilitate getting or helping you get the releases needed.