Do I have to pay to shoot an Event?

photowoz

Ok.

I shoot freelance for a mag. I've been shooting SCORE Off-Road Events for about 10 years. I cover every race in Mexico that they have. Including the Baja 1000. I also upload my extra pics to my smugmug account. This way some of the racers I know can see themselves and occasionally buy a print.

Now.... I'm being told that SCORE (The event organizer) wants me to pay a licensing fee to shoot their events. I'm a bit shocked by this, but as far as I know, they have no leg to stand on to enforce this. Am I missing something?

It's a public event. I am in a public place when I shoot. What else do I need?

I don't think selling a print of a guy (racer) back to him (photo of himself) can be considered commercial. Can it?

Jeffro

photowoz wrote:

Now.... I'm being told that SCORE (The event organizer) wants me to pay a licensing fee to shoot their events.

Who's telling you this?

photowoz wrote:

I don't think selling a print of a guy (racer) back to him (photo of himself) can be considered commercial. Can it?

I call it ART. It would most definately be commercial if you tried to sell an image for advertising or product use without the person in the photos permission. SCORE would also have rights, I'm guessing here, if any of thier logos were in the photos sold for those reasons.

I don't worry about it. I think of it this way, if they let you take your camera into an event, they have no say so where I "show my photos to my friends."

Angelo

photowoz wrote:

Ok.

I shoot freelance for a mag. I've been shooting SCORE Off-Road Events for about 10 years. I cover every race in Mexico that they have. Including the Baja 1000. I also upload my extra pics to my smugmug account. This way some of the racers I know can see themselves and occasionally buy a print.

Now.... I'm being told that SCORE (The event organizer) wants me to pay a licensing fee to shoot their events. I'm a bit shocked by this, but as far as I know, they have no leg to stand on to enforce this. Am I missing something?

It's a public event. I am in a public place when I shoot. What else do I need?

I don't think selling a print of a guy (racer) back to him (photo of himself) can be considered commercial. Can it?

Please explain your contention that these are public events.

lynnesite

photowoz wrote:

Ok.

I shoot freelance for a mag. I've been shooting SCORE Off-Road Events for about 10 years. I cover every race in Mexico that they have. Including the Baja 1000. I also upload my extra pics to my smugmug account. This way some of the racers I know can see themselves and occasionally buy a print.

Now.... I'm being told that SCORE (The event organizer) wants me to pay a licensing fee to shoot their events. I'm a bit shocked by this, but as far as I know, they have no leg to stand on to enforce this. Am I missing something?

It's a public event. I am in a public place when I shoot. What else do I need?

I don't think selling a print of a guy (racer) back to him (photo of himself) can be considered commercial. Can it?

You're either a media photographer (no charge) or you're a vendor (maybe a charge), it depends on their policy and should not be capricious.

Is there an OP (official photographer) for the event, that has the right to sell to participants? If so, it would be professional courtesy NOT to offer your goods, or only to do so long after the event so that the OP makes his "nut".

OPs sometimes pay a vendor fee (rare), most often are under contract to the event. How you could think that SELLING a photo of a person TO a person is NOT commercial is rather startling.

claudermilk

Angelo wrote:

Please explain your contention that these are public events.

I have not attended any of the races, but my understanding is that there is NO crowd control at all for the Baja race. If you want ot see it, just drive out to the course, pick a spot & watch. No tickets, fences, anything. I can see his position that it's public in that they make no attempt to control who gets to the course to watch--it's a free-for-all.

Are they telling all photographers this? I figure there has to be a couple hundred staff & freelance photogs running around the course.