Leave your camera at home

[Stu M]

Unless you want some Conference fascist bully boy ejecting you for abusing 'their' image rights...

 

A new licensing scheme has been put in place for pitchside conference photographers - and it tries to prevent unauthorised publication of images on the web.

 

Persons wising to take photographs at Conference matches need to be authorised by the home club, and will be subject to the terms of the licence. The key items in the agreement are:

 

A photographer must have suitable public liability insurance of not less than £5million per claim.

 

Only single still images can be published or offered for publication (no video)

 

Web publication, without a special "Web Licence" from the Football Conference, is only permitted on 'online equivalents' to Authorised Publications (i.e. the websites of newspapers/magazines etc). The web site must have a 'legally binding' set of terms and conditions preventing printing etc of the image.

 

An exception to the above is that a photographer may make the pictures available via the web if they are encrypted etc. (this seems to be allowing photo agencies to use the web to sell their pictures).

 

A photographer may not alter an image other than certain allowable exceptions (e.g. you can Photoshop out a stray hand that just makes it into the edge of the shot, but you can't alter/cover logos etc).

 

Update: Note, these are the restrictions that apply to licensed photographers. It does not necessarily imply that all photographers must be licensed. I understand that clubs have some discretion to also allow in one or more non-licensed people. If you take photos currently, or wish to in the future, I recommend you contact your club in the first instance.

 

[Graham S]

Thanks for that.

 

As someone who ocasionally enjoyed sharing my photos & video clips with other supporters on this site, for free, I find this latest bit of corporate, big business, joyless, money grabbing, income protecting b*llocks as utterly mind bogglingly insane as it is utterly mind bogglingly, insanely predictable.

 

Do the peole who dream up this kind of [****!!****] actually have a life? Have they ever genuinely supported a football team or done anything without calculating the net profit to be gained from so doing? Do they furtively hide away (sorry, they don't need to hide, as they live alone) pleasuring themselves, whilst leafing through the pages of "Money Matters?" All rhetorical questions of course.

 

Graham S

[Stu M]

It does appear to suck. It damages the part-time enthusiast who shares pics with other fans, it damages independent websites who want to do the same thing... and what's the point? The people it will hurt the most are those who don't have any profit-seeking in mind. Just so the Conference can insist on OWNING everything it has its brand name plastered across.

 

Anyway, how will they stop people taking photos from the terraces? Deploy stewards who would be better employed maintaining safety and stopping racist chanting rather than nicking people's cameras and ejecting them from grounds!!

[Graham S]

Quote:

Stu M said:
Anyway, how will they stop people taking photos from the terraces? Deploy stewards who would be better employed maintaining safety and stopping racist chanting rather than nicking people's cameras and ejecting them from grounds!!

Exactly. I shan't be back from holiday until the Stevenage game, but I fully intend taking Frank Canon with me & pointing him at every dangerous looking Fleet build up, as well as dear Mr Westley's sporting reaction to his team of overpaid mercenaries receiving a sound beating. Be interesting to see if any of the thought police make a move on me.

Graham S

[Alan W (GNFC)]

See latest Confguide news item

 

Photo Update

[Graham S]

Thanks, Alan. Captain Sensible, as ever.

 

Have to admit, though, I was quite looking forward to doing combat with the forces of beauracy.

 

Graham S

[Guest]

The original item did refer to "pitch-side" photographers, but everyone seemed to ignore that bit, hence the need for the follow-up!

[Alan W (GNFC)]

"Pitchside" - could be defined as beside the pitch and that covers all watching the game!!

 

Clearly, its meant to define the pitch side of the boundary wall though!!