Legal to sell photos of sports arenas?

nvisiblephoto

There's a new basketball arena opening up in my city and I was wondering if there would be any legal issue involved in selling photos of it. I know that some public buildings are copyrighted (like the Sears Tower) but I'm not sure about this one.

Glort

If you ask about anything with the slightest, million to 1 chance of being illegal, the responses you get will all be over the top warnings of the sky falling down and not to do whatever it is you are asking about.

The real situation is entirely likely to be entirely different and as such it is a lot more worthwhile to pay your qualified legal adviser for anything that matters.

nvisiblephoto

I'm sure there's someone here that could answer this question.

Angelo

nvisiblephoto wrote: »

I'm sure there's someone here that could answer this question.

actually there are several and this question has been answered before (repeatedly)

There's a "PHOTOGs RESOURCES" sticky at the top of this forum that offers numerous reference material on copyright.

As for your question: You weren't specific enough and copyright laws are rife with nuance.

"Sell photos"? ummm, digital files? prints? to whom? for what purpose?

The basic facts of photography are; If you can see it and photograph it in public, from a public space, then it's fair game. This includes people.

Buildings (like the Sears Tower) are not copyrighted. Buildings can not be copyrighted, THEIR DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURAL PLANS may be copyrighted, either by the architect or the building owner or both.

You can photograph any building you want and sell as many individual prints as you'd like.

What you CANNOT do is photograph the Sears Tower and sell that image to a third party for commercial use (example, a glass company that manufactures exterior curtain walls for skyscrapers to use in an advertisement, or a travel company offering Chicago vacations) without the permission of the owner of copyright by way of an instrument of release.




.

Glort

Angelo wrote: »

You can photograph any building you want and sell as many individual prints as you'd like.

What you CANNOT do is photograph the Sears Tower and sell that image to a third party for commercial use (example, a glass company that manufacturers exterior curtain walls for skyscrapers to use in an advertisement, or a travel company offering Chicago vacations) without the permission of the owner of copyright by way of an instrument of release.




.

I'm confused already.
On one line you saying I can sell as many prints as I like and on the next your saying I can't.

I'm no lawyer but I would suggest this is completely incorrect.

I believe you may be able to sell the prints ( or digital files) to whoever you like with no problem. It's not the selling of your images that creates the potential problems, it's what's DONE with those images.
I also believe if you sold the images on a private use basis and they were used commercially, then it would be the glass company at fault not the photographer.

OTOH, if you ran off a heap of these images and sold them to the general public, that MAY constitute a commercial (for profit) use in itself.

But, I don't know for sure and I doubt many people do and if so, their correct information will probably get mixed up with a lot of incorrect opinions so the layperson has no idea of what the situation really is and is no better off than before they asked in the first place.

And this is why I straight away suggested to go talk to a qualified person.
There are endless discussions on these topics and they are all full of conflicting arguments. Somewhere there is the truth but a person has no way of knowing what is the correct answer and what is not. If people did know the correct answers, there wouldn't be the widely varying difference of opinion in the first place because the facts would never change.

If you need to know an answer to a legal question for business reasons or those other than a passing interest, the only way to really know an answer you can put faith in is to go get it from a qualified person, not an internet forum.

I wouldn't go to a lawyer to ask how to take a photo, I see no sense in going to a photographic forum to find out about the law.

fredjclaus

It would really depend on why you were selling them. If you sell them to local and national newspapers for photojournalism use, then no there is no legal issue there.

if you are looking to sell them as wall art or such, and it's recognizable as that particular arena you will need the written permission from the NBA, the owner of the team, and the owner of the arena.

That's the short answer, there are a ton of other strings and legalities here, but in general that's what you are facing.

Angelo

Glort wrote: »

...On one line you saying I can sell as many prints as I like and on the next your saying I can't...

No. I did not!

.

johng

Here's my advice - consult an attorney in your area. Common sense and the law have nothing in common. If litigation is brought against you, you lose either way because you have to pay for attorney's fees. As has been said there are nuances. For example, The NBA, MLB, NHL have uniforms and players' likenesses copyrighted. You cannot take a photo of Derek Jeter in his Yankee uniform and sell posters of it. Again, law and common sense don't always agree. At the end of the day, "so and so on DGRIN dot com said it was OK" really isn't going to help you.