"Photography Licence"

[Az]

I received an interesting email today... it reads as follows...

"Good Afternoon,

As you may be aware, Dorna UK Ltd (Dorna) owns the commercial and media rights (which include all racing images) to the British Superbike Championship.

It is necessary to obtain a licence from Dorna in order to offer for sale racing pictures or photographic images of the Championship series. Such licences enable approved photographers to sell images to the general public, but not to commercial concerns for production of books, reviews, calendars etc.

We have noted that you are running a website offering British Superbike Championship racing pictures and images for sale. Even though you are not an accredited photographer we are willing in this instance to grant you a licence for the remainder of the season. If you do not apply for a licence, we will take further action against you selling British Superbike Championship racing images.

For the remaining rounds of the 2006 season, there will be a reduced fee of £400 + VAT.

Please supply to the address details shown below (via email or post) the following information:

Name
Postal Address
Contact Telephone number
Email address

On approval, Dorna UK Ltd will issue an invoice for the relevant fee and payment must be made within 14 days of the invoice date. A letter of licence will be issued following clearance of payment.

???

Events Manager

Dorna UK Ltd

???

???@dorna.com"

Interesting because I don't "sell" my photos, I take them for fun. I think this email might have been automatically sent to many people with online galleries of British Superbikes. What do you think? Has anyone else here received something like this before? Should I be bothered?

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by Az

Interesting because I don't "sell" my photos, I take them for fun.

However on your website..

Professional quality prints of all my photos are available. If any are of interest to you please contact me by email to discuss.

..which sounds like selling to me.

I've had a request to remove pictures but never a request for payment such as this.

As I see it you have 3 choices.
1) pay the £400
2) remove the BSB pictures from your site
3) after the sentence about making prints available add something like "do to copyright restrictions prints of any British Superbike Championship event are not available to purchase"

[Pigit]

There was a thread on motorbikeracer.com about this alot of the photogs on there had letters the same as that one too redshoes.

[forzaf1]

Sorry to hear that Az, it would the company is trying to do a Bernie.

Take them off, not worth the hassle of it. I think they shoudl realise you are just a photographer doing it for fun and for the love of motorsport and you don't mean any harm by it.

[Snapper Baz]

But what if they were taken from a public (which they may or may not have been) area on a circuit-do the rules change then I wonder?

[Pigit]

This is a Thread going on at motorbike racer.


http://www.motorbikeracer.com/forum/...pic.php?t=1960

[redshoes]

You need to register and wait for the account to be activated before you can even view that thread. How about a brief overview of what has been said.

[Pigit]

"Sorry guys but I have been asked by dorna to close my superbikes section on my website (http://www.foolsandkings.co.uk) , even though I haven't sold any, because it upsets the people who have paid to take photos.

For £400 I could have got a licence to sell them to private individuals, but not to magazines, papers or any other publised material.

Strangely enough I thought that because I did this for enjoyment and not to undermine the profits of Dorna, that £400 was a bit steep (as I still wouldn't have been able to get trackside) and so down came the site.

Thanks to all those who have emailed me, letting me know how much they enjoyed the site, it was very appriciated.

Take care and Enjoy

Alistair

http://www.foolsandkings.co.uk

P.S. Does this mean that all the fans photos on OFFICIAL BSB TEAMS sites need to come down as I would have thought that 99% of them don't have a licence either ?, lets hope its not one rule for one and a different rule for another"

[alfacors]

It is a similar situation here in Australia with the V8Supercars.
Several accredited photographers have had legal action threatened as they were selling V8Supercar images when they are not allowed to (and apparently a couple have had their accreditation revoked). I believe it has to do with intellectual property rights of the V8Supercar belonging to V8Supercars Australia. I do not distribute any of my V8Supercar images (for payment or for free) just in case. There have been mutterings of people selling photos of V8s on Ebay getting emailed and threatened with legal action unless they ceased the auctions immediately..

[James North]

With any series, you have to be very careful.

I know Az that you do this for your personal enjoyment, and maybe do not have aspirations to take it further. But you do offer to sell prints. Which on face of it seems harmless enough I agree, as I also offer prints.

But, it is very important to appreciate that in every motor sport photograph there will be copyrighted material. This ranges from the cars/bikes including their design, livery and sponsorship logos (i.e registerd trademarks), then you have the circuit, which many of them also protect thier image, which also contain advertising (i.e registerd trademarks). So it's very important to appreciate that we as photographers do not own the material within them.

Many teams/venues have little problem with people using the pictures for "journalistic" purposes. Basically this means you can display the picture. But you can't go any further. Because to sell, is effectively dealing with their "Intellectual property" and that is when they get upset because they have to protect their sponsors/parnters interests because they pay a lot of money to have their logo's etc there.

Where as you pay nothing to use thier image.

To be honest there shouldn't be any problem with you displaying your images. But it would be sensible if you haven't already got one, to include a comprehensive disclaimer. After a few scrapes, I had to develop my website viewing terms and conditions, and the disclaimer. I also changed the word "sales" in my website to the word "usage".

It just needs some care in how you word things.

[gungadan]

Originally Posted by James North

With any series, you have to be very careful.

But, it is very important to appreciate that in every motor sport photograph there will be copyrighted material. This ranges from the cars/bikes including their design, livery and sponsorship logos (i.e registerd trademarks), then you have the circuit, which many of them also protect thier image, which also contain advertising (i.e registerd trademarks). So it's very important to appreciate that we as photographers do not own the material within them.

Many teams/venues have little problem with people using the pictures for "journalistic" purposes. Basically this means you can display the picture. But you can't go any further. Because to sell, is effectively dealing with their "Intellectual property" and that is when they get upset because they have to protect their sponsors/parnters interests because they pay a lot of money to have their logo's etc there.

The above is often trotted out but I don't think it's got much to do with a genuine concern over protection of IP. It has everything to do with perceived (and occasionally genuine) loss of revenue for those who have paid a licence to an organising body. The organising body in turn need to protect their position and licence revenue stream.

Consider the following from Section 31 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:

"Where a photograph is taken which incidentally includes another copyright work, the copyright in that other work is not infringed by either the taking of the photograph or subsequent use of the photograph."

This is very clear. You are not infringing copyright by taking a picture of a car with sponsorship logos plastered all over it or the circuit's copyright if it happens to be in the background.

It continues:

"However, a copyright work would not be considered to have been included in a photograph incidentally where it is the subject or main subject of the photograph. Deliberate inclusion of a copyright work in a photograph would also be unlikely to be considered to be 'incidental'."

So you could argue that if you took a photograph of, say, a Yamaha, in the case of Superbikes, Yamaha might have a case against you, since their bike is clearly the main subject of the photograph. However, I don't think that this is something you need to worry about.

[James North]

That looks like a long winded way of saying that it's fine to display, but not to sell.

Which the same as me saying that they don't mind you using images for "jouranlistic purposes", the problem arises when you try to start selling, because then you are effectively making money from someone elses copyright.

[gungadan]

Originally Posted by James North

That looks like a long winded way of saying that it's fine to display, but not to sell.

Which the same as me saying that they don't mind you using images for "jouranlistic purposes", the problem arises when you try to start selling, because then you are effectively making money from someone elses copyright.

I'm not arguing that in this case the OP has much choice but to stop offering the photos for sale but I don't think it's got much (if anything) to do with "making money from someone elses copyright". The photographer owns the copyright unless he reassigns it. It's a media rights/licencing issue.

If you took a photo of a BSB race bike in a public place I don't believe that Dorna or anyone else would be able to do anything about it if you sold it to a member of the public. The only reason they can prevent photographers from selling photos taken at a circuit is either because they've signed on as press (which is effectively a contract, though you don't assign copyright or you wouldn't even be able to sell for editorial purposes) or bought a ticket which is sold subject to certain terms & conditions.

Not that it matters, the outcome is the same.

[924nut]

Originally Posted by gungadan

If you took a photo of a BSB race bike in a public place I don't believe that Dorna or anyone else would be able to do anything about it if you sold it to a member of the public. The only reason they can prevent photographers from selling photos taken at a circuit is either because they've signed on as press (which is effectively a contract, though you don't assign copyright or you wouldn't even be able to sell for editorial purposes) or bought a ticket which is sold subject to certain terms & conditions.

Not that it matters, the outcome is the same.

My understanding is that the small print on the back of an entrance ticket (at all the UK race circuits) only permits a spectator to take photographs/video for their personal use - therefore its not just the signed on media who are restricted.

[Az]

Originally Posted by redshoes

However on your website....which sounds like selling to me.

I've now changed that slightly... OLD

Professional quality prints of all my photos are available. If any are of interest to you please contact me by email to discuss.

to... NEW

Professional quality prints of many of my photos are available. If any are of interest to you please contact me by email to discuss.

I'm not going to take my photos of British Superbikes offline. I spent good money attending and enjoyed taking and sharing photos. If approached for prints I will just explain they are not available for resale. No big deal since I've never actively tried to "sell" any of my photos... it's just an expensive hobby for me

I've seen a few photography sites with shopping baskets, as well as sites like Photobox with user galleries of BSBK available for sale. I wonder if these will be stopped?

[redshoes]

It's something that has been discussed here a number of times. A lot of the regular posters here have websites that offer to sell pictures yet, accredited snapper aside, most of us consider it nothing more than a hobby. Any prints that get sold are little more than pin money.

The conditions of entry on the tickets or in the programme dates back long before mass internet access. You could argue (we probably already have) that posting pictures to a forum or create a gallery webpage goes beyond "personal use". I would hope not, and it's not an arguement I'd like to see given to the lawers.

To be honest Az I think what you've done is the best approach. Don't get disheartened by it all. Chances are Dorna were having a purge against the bigger offenders and you were unlucky enough to get caught in the wash. They probably did a scout around Google or the bike forums and found your site.

Just out of interest have you replied to the email or are you going to wait and see if they follow it up?

[James North]

It's probably best to reply explaining yourself. Surley it would be a waste of their time to take action, you're not exactly big fish, and it isn't like you are trying to make money from them. You simply wanted to share your hobby.