|
Agree Richard.
I would imagine that IP could also get quite complicated when the images are of an individual car, team or driver, in that even though photographer X took the photo, there wouldn't be a photo to take if the team didn't exist so maybe the team has some rights as well. Then there are rights held by the owners of the series as well.
I know for example that with Supercars here in Oz, any photographer requiring accreditation has to sign over at least partial IP rights to the Supercars organisation and that there is an arrangement between Supercars and the teams that Supercars can use images of a group of cars or teams as much as it likes but if the images are of a single driver or team there is some kind of approval and/or IP sharing arrangement with the team concerned.
I don't believe that Motorsport Images necessarily acknowledges any of that automatically and it certainly sounds like there is some hard ball being played with pitpass in this case - maybe only some legal argument would resolve that and no doubt Liberty may well have something to say in any such argument regarding F1.
Sidenote, I emailed Motorsport Images myself about a small number of images in its library of cars where I'd been a crew member, asking for access to the images for my own personal use, made it clear not commercial. No reply, tried again, same. Not bitter about it but the company clearly takes a pretty firm line on it owning everything as a starting position.
|