Greed and the 1st Amendment
Friday, Mar 7, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* It’s not a good idea to mess with the newspapers, even when they’re greedy…
State lawmakers gave early approval to a law that would allow newspapers to continue selling pictures from high school state championship tournaments without restriction.
The proposal, approved by a Senate committee Thursday, stems from incidents in which the Illinois High School Association barred newspaper photographers from football and basketball sidelines during championship games unless they agreed the images won’t be sold.
Those that refuse to sign such agreements have been relegated to the stands or press box. The IHSA, which is not a state agency, recently relaxed its policy and granted access during the girls’ basketball championships. The boys’ basketball championships start this weekend in Peoria.
* More…
DeJuan Kea of the Illinois Statewide School Management Alliance said schools oppose the legislation in part because they fear they will have to start paying dues to cover the cost of student athletics.
“At the end of the day, I think this all comes down to a profit, regardless of whether they want to admit it or not,” Kea said.
The IHSA this week proposed a deal that would let news organizations take and sell any photos they wanted at nearly all high school sporting events, except for the state tournament finals. Photos from those final playoff games could be given away or sold “at cost,” IHSA executive director Marty Hickman told the committee. […]
“The real issue here for us, for the newspaper industry, is that we have a product that’s our product, and what we do with it is our business,” [IPA executive director David Bennett] said. “For them to say that we can’t do that is unconstitutional.”
* They do have the 1st Amendment on their side, and barring shooters from the games is not a good idea. But this isn’t about the photos that appear in newspapers, it’s about the cash newspapers are making from reselling those photos to the public. Check out the SJ-R’s reprint prices…
Size………. Unframed…… Framed
14″ Full Page $29.95 each $129.99 each
21″ Full Page $45.95 each $169.99 each
And if you try to reprint or even post anything without their permission, they get all lawyerly on you.
Most legislators receive pretty favorable coverage in their hometown papers, so they’re naturally reluctant to tell them to stick it.
Thoughts?
- wordslinger - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 11:14 am:
Ugh — high school basketball is now a product. If the newspapers are looking to make a buck off the kids, they should pony up.
- hoops fan - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 11:23 am:
I really enjoyed purchasing the IHSA book which includes hundreds of pictures taken by newspaper photographers at the state tournament, without permission from the newspaper or the photogs involved. Cost, about $40 bucks. I’m glad the IHSA isn’t profiting from the kids or newspapers.
- anon - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 11:25 am:
I am no fan of the IHSA, but I think there is a legal point, that having to do with model releases, especially for minors. The high school game may be considered a public event and participants give up a right to privacy and expect that they may be photographed and that those photos may be published. However, the subsequent the sale of published photos, without a written release from the legal guardians of the minor particpants seems to be a violation of law. I am sure the IPA is all over this, and I am not a lawyer. With newspaper subscriptions and ad sales tanking severely, I am sure every profit avenue that can be driven on will be, including the exploitation of minors at athletic events.
- Ghost - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 11:31 am:
If I read that correctly, its not about taking and selling the photos, its about access to the floor to take the best pictures. So they are free to sit in the stands and snap pics. I dislike the idea that I as a parent can not gget on the sidelines to take good potos of my kid, but the newspaper gets that access so they can charge me a lot of money for their pics. I say if they want to sell the photos, put them in the stands. Alternatively, give parents sideline access so we can take our own great shots for free.
- Bob Loblaw - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 12:00 pm:
I had the opportunity to be on the sidelines at an IHSA event 2 years ago as an assistant coach. We were told that we could purchase pictures through VIP (Visual Image Photography). The IHSA is associated (I believe it’s an exclusive contract) with VIP Here is a link to their IHSA state finals website http://www.vipis.com/VIP/Pages/EStore_mp.aspx
- Jimmy87 - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 12:07 pm:
Rich, you left out the fact that the IHSA has an exclusive agreement with a photographer themselves. VIP, Inc., a Wisconsin based company has the exclusive photo rights to IHSA events. That’s what’s greedy!
Check out their cost of reprints, they aren’t much different than the newspapers:
http://www.vipis.com/VIP/Pages/EStore_mp.aspx
- Kiyoshi Martinez - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 1:01 pm:
Even if this shakes out in favor of the newspapers, they’re completely screwing up how to make money off of their prints.
I think it’s a bit absurd to charge $25.95 for an unframed 10″ print. While they’re probably turning a decent enough profit on the print, I can’t imagine they’re selling a high volume.
Instead, why not sell smaller sized prints at a reduced price, including unpublished photos? To give you an example, Flickr sells 5″x7″ prints at $0.59 each. Plus, they’ve partnered with Target so you can pick it up locally or have it shipped to your home.
There’s no reason why GateHouse, Gannett, etc. couldn’t do something similar and take advantage of the long-tail revenue possibilities here.
And this doesn’t even begin to address the terrible ordering system the SJ-R.com website has. It should have a “buy this print” link/button under each print and there’s not even a link for reprinting services on the frontpage. Furthermore, they should use an internal tagging system to link together similar photos through a “other photos you might enjoy” link for people to click on.
Their preps sports page is as good as any, but it’s just not efficiently monetized. Then again, the online archives are locked and you have to pay $2.95 to see an article that ran 15 days ago. I mean, geez, even GateHouse’s director for digital publishing has been saying that paywalls and paid content is dead online.
- Greg - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 1:04 pm:
This is between IHSA and the news outlets, why does government need to be involved. If newspapers want access to the sidelines to take photos and sell them, they should cut a deal with the IHSA. There is no reason why everyone can’t profit. The IHSA, news outlets and consumers.
One problem I see wiht this is that If newspapers can demand and get access to the sidelines, then why not bloggers? Anybody can be a photo journalist, the only real requirement is a camera.
- Greedy??????????? - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 1:04 pm:
Seems like IHSA is as greedey as any. They are publically funded, right? So’s just maybe, a kids family ought to be able to ‘file save’ an image from their local news rag that covered the event? Maybe it’s just me.
- ChiCountryGuy - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 1:14 pm:
The IHSA does NOT receive money from the State of IL.
The press wants access and they have access. It’s about the money now.
- Deep South - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 1:16 pm:
The IHSA claims to own the product. Excuse me…..the taxpayers own the product. The government needs to step in remind the IHSA that high schools are funded by the public and as such, the public owns the product. Conversely, what the newspapers need to do is stop covering IHSA events. I mean they’re just providing free publicity and promotions for the IHSA product. But that will be the day…LOL
- jane doe - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 1:25 pm:
both sides are taking advantage of kid sports. Sidelines should be open to any and all as long as they do not disrupt the game.
- Cogito - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 2:16 pm:
So, when are the newspapers going to start selling photographs of NFL games that they have pulled off of television broadcasts?
This is about money. IHSA doesn’t get public money and has to find ways to support itself,and just like the NCAA has done with Host Communication for many years, they have sold media rights.
IHSA works out a deal with VIP to give VIP the concession for photo sales. You want a photo of your kid catching the pass, you get it from VIP and IHSA gets part of the action. BUT the papers want in on the game too.
IHSA says that they can go to the games, go anywhere they want and take pictures for publication, BUT for the favor of getting that on-field access, they can’t sell the photos; VIP has that concession as IHSA has sold that right to them.
The papers want to sell the photos just like VIP but not provide any portion of that sale to IHSA.
I am certain this is just the sort of “freedom of the press” problem the Founders were trying to avoid when crafting the First Amendment!
- Bruno - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 3:33 pm:
Greg gets at the basic issue. Is this a public event? If so, any one should be able to take pictures and sell them. Does IHSA have exclusive rights to sell sideline rights? How did they get that?
It’s fascinating how everything has become licensed, and to a great degree, scammed and gamed.
In a rational and corporatized world, photo areas would be first come first serve (bloggers ought to qualify), and anyone who shot a good photo ought to be able to sell it.
Even with the greater professionalism of trained reporters, I sense that people can do better than $29 per photo.
Basically, the question is whether school sports are a public or private activity. What conferred the power to the IHSA to effectively ‘privatize’ HS sports.
Of course, the same type of NGOs have “privatized” public education inside a protected and unaccountable bureaucracy, but that’s another issue.
- Frank Booth - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 4:12 pm:
The problem so far has been that the IHSA’s preferred photographers haven’t done a professional job. Just ask the Metamora kicker who kicked the state championship winning field goal. No official IHSA pic because their guy was out of place, ill prepared and flatout missed it. If that happened with a real sports photog, he or she wouldn’t be a real sports photog for long.
But this really should be sorted out somewhere besides the General Assembly. No one looks good in this debate which boils down to who gets exclusive rights to sell images of children playing sports.
What’s next? The IESA?
- Arthur Andersen - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 8:10 pm:
Three biggest Financial Fibs:
1)The IHSA is not publicly funded.
2)U of I Athletics Department receives no cash from the Big U.
3) The CMS shared services save lots of money.
I’m sure that in the public summary budget and financials of the IHSA (and their cronies at the School Boards and Administrators’ Associations) one might not find an explicit line item, “Money from State.” However, there is a huge amount of publicly funded staff time that goes into participating in these little groups, attending their multitudinous “conferences and workshops,”
serving on their boards and committees, yada, yada, yada, not to mention more blatant abuse of public funds.
I agree that this should be settled outside the GA. Just a guess, but perhaps some private school that wins a lot of titles is going to tell the official photog to stick his Nikon where the sun don’t shine, and the battle will start.
- Jeff Lampe - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 8:45 pm:
So how far is the step from saying photos are regulated to saying stories are regulated? When do we determine the IHSA has decided to censor coverage?
- GoHawk2 - Sunday, Mar 9, 08 @ 3:37 pm:
Everyone seems to be saying that the IHSA is comprised of public schools. and is taxpayer supported. Who told them that? It isn’t; it’s comprised of public and PRIVATE schools. Those private and public schools VOLUNTARILY join the IHSA and they do not even pay dues to join, hence no taxpayer money from public schools goes to the IHSA. The IHSA does not claim “own” HS sports. Some schools choose not to belong. Whhat the IHSA does do is set up rules and policies for those schools who choose to belong and it runs the post-season tournaments. Don’t like the IHSA rules? Convince your school to leave the IHSA (you don’t have to belong - for years the Catholic League and Chicago Public schools did not) and “do your own thing”.