By Sedda Kreabs
(November 17, 2005) – The athletic communications director at Syracuse University in New York has raised legal questions about the limits of photographers’ copyright ownership when she recently asked at least two photographers to remove photographs they had posted in their online portfolio galleries or risk losing their Syracuse sports credentials.
The photographs were made with field credentials issued in “good faith” by the University, without any written limitations or contracts associated with their use.
Susan C. Edson, director of athletic communications at Syracuse, threatened to revoke the photography credentials issued to the student newspaper and a local newspaper if staff photographers did not remove images posted to a member portfolio area on the Web site SportsShooter.com. Photographers post images to the Web site seeking peer critiques and to promomte their work. Edson cited concerns that the images were being used commercially on the Web site, and a fear that their use could affect the privacy and NCAA standing of the Syracuse athletes who were pictured.
Kirk Irwin, a graduate student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse, immediately removed 10 images he shot at a September football game from his portfolio page on SportsShooter.com to prevent the loss of his newspaper’s credential. Irwin shot the sports action and feature photographs while working as an unpaid staff photographer for The Daily Orange, the school’s student newspaper.
Niko Kallianiotis, a photographer for the Watertown Daily Times, also removed Syracuse sports images from his SportsShooter portfolio space after Edson spoke with his newspaper’s editor.
Edson is concerned that a student athlete’s eligibility could be harmed if he or she is perceived as endorsing a business, and that the University — and her position — could be punished for allowing such an endorsement.
"We’re trying to figure out, is SportsShooter.com an editorial site, or is it a businesses?" Edson told News Photographer magazine today, pointing out that many photographers use the site with the hope that their work will be recognized by freelance clients. She said she understood the "gist" of the NCAA regulations, and that colleagues in the athletic communications office are checking on specifics with the NCAA, to learn how online portfolios fit in to commercial use rules.
"If (a photograph is) put out there to try to gain employment, it’s the photographer’s business … Currently enrolled student athletes are not allowed to endorse any commercial product, any business."
Edson became aware of the photographs posted online after being contacted by a freelance photographer who had been denied a credential to a Syracuse sporting event. Longstanding Syracuse University policy allows media credentialing only for named editorial publications and not for general freelancers, due to space restrictions on fields and courts.
At the Newhouse School, Irwin, editors for The Daily Orange, and university professors are trying to understand the concerns that Edson has raised.
“How can a photojournalism portfolio on the Internet, how can that be construed as a commercial use?” asked Sung Park, an assistant professor at the Newhouse School and a former staff photographer for the Austin American-Statesman. “I don’t know where this is coming from, I really don’t. It seems to have just come out of nowhere.”
Park and Irwin met with Edson on Wednesday morning to discuss the matter, along with Daily Orange editors, representatives of the sports information department staff, and the president of the school’s National Press Photographers Association student chapter, Angela Baldridge.
“The mutual thing (both sides) were concerned about was the misuse of images, and if that was ever the case we would all work together to take care of that issue,” Park said shortly after the Wednesday meeting. “I think the fact that we’re able to sit down and talk about this is a good first step.” He described the discussion as “calm and rational” but said he feels he still does not have a full understanding of Edson’s concerns.
Edson said she would like to work with the photographers and area newspapers to come to a resolution.
"It seems to me the photographers don’t want to understand that we have a responsibility," Edson said. "My responsibility is to the student athletes."
"The student photographer doesn’t have a right to use a student athlete’s image in a portfolio. That’s our concern in all of this. What about the student athlete’s right?"
The group tentatively discussed a compromise — the re-posting of Irwin’s images at SportsShooter.com with the use of a watermark or a credit to the publication for which they were originally shot. The suggestion wasn’t settled definitively, and there is no future meeting scheduled to discuss the issue.
Meanwhile, Baldridge is gathering research regarding the definition of portfolio display as a commercial use of content. To her, the important selling point in any sports action image is the moment, not necessarily the image of a given player. “(The issue) obviously has major implications for schools and athletes across the country,” she said.
Through research and discourse, Baldridge and NPPA's leadership are working to support and clarify the rights of photojournalists. Photojournalist Harry DiOrio is the elected director of NPPA's Region 2, and as such serves on the NPPA board of directors. He's a Syracuse graduate and a former school Sports Information photographer. DiOrio is concerned that Irwin's issue may be at the top of a slippery slope. "The last thing NPPA wants is for universities to create restrictive policies across the board because no one is complaining about it," he said.
"I think the role of the (NPPA) organization in these types of quagmires is to offer support to the people who are out there fighting for their rights. And if someone starts to trample on those rights, we’re going to rear up and fight for the rights we think we have. And if we don’t fight we won’t have them any more. It’s that simple,” DiOrio said Thursday from New York City.
As a result of the situation in Syracuse, the SportsShooter.com management team Wednesday updated its “Terms and Conditions” language on its Web site, removing a reference to “brochures” that could be created by third parties.
The terms and conditions that SportsShooter’s members must follow leave room for the Web site to use their work to “to copy, cache, modify, publish, display, distribute, translate, create derivative works from, and store the Posted Content,” but now clarifies the limited scope of that claim: “SSC does not claim the right to use your images in any way other than on the Site itself.”
Grover Sanschagrin, the executive producer of SportsShooter.com, explained that the terms allow the site to promote a “featured member” by copying their content on the front page each day, with a link to the member’s portfolio page within the site.
“We made some adjustments for clarity,” Sanschagrin said about yesterday’s changes. “People were getting the wrong idea and we had to fix that and it came down to the one line about the brochure.”
Sanschagrin said the original clause was to protect SportsShooter.com from liability for third party use of member images when screen shots were made of the site (for example, when a university promotes an appearance by SportsShooter.com leadership to give a talk, and a screen shot including member images is reproduced on a flyer).
The new language is more encompassing. “SportsShooter is an educational resource for photographers,” Sanschagrin said. “There is no buying and selling of images on SportsShooter.com. It’s basically for and by photographers to review and critique portfolios and we provide the forum for that to happen.”
Sanchagrin noted that SportsShooter cautions photographers only to post images for which they own copyright or permissions – even if the images only appear as a tiny icon next to the photographer’s name when posting comments in online discussion lists.
“The actual Web site itself does not make sales of images possible,” Sanschagrin said. “If people get jobs out of this, freelance contacts out of this, that’s a positive benefit out of displaying good work.” SportsShooter.com boasts more than 7 million page views monthly.
In Syracuse, Kirk Irwin seems far less clear on the rights afforded to him under the Syracuse athletic department’s credential – a button that a photographer wears in order to gain sideline access. The credential is shared among The Daily Orange staff.
“There is no language on the back of the credential (the button),” Irwin said. He said he was not familiar with terms the newspaper may have agreed to separate from the photography button, but that he thought that the rights extended to editorial use – such as on SportsShooter.com.
“I consider it to be editorial and educational because I can get feedback and comments on what I post. It’s strictly there for display. It’s an editorial site,” he said.
Edson has stated that media credentials are issued by her office in "good faith" without conditions. Credential terms are not printed online, in media guides, or issued with the credential photo buttons. She said she has been in touch with at least three other universities to survey their credentialing policies and is considering proposing changes for next season.
"The staff photographer is credentialed for the media outlet, not to put their photos on SportsShooter.com. I'll tell you what, next year we might have conditions put on a credential a photographer has to sign and to understand."
Access limitations favoring commercialization over editorial use of images made at professional and university sporting events have raised concerns for agencies such as Getty Images, whose clients demanded that their editorial and commercial sports images be posted separately.
The issue dovetails with concerns raised by the World Association of Newspapers, which this week criticized the ever-increasing restrictions placed on the media by sporting event organizers. The group’s board, which represents more than 18,000 publications worldwide, approved a resolution Tuesday in Copenhagen, stating:
“In the name of protecting lucrative licensing agreements, sports organizations have been placing needless restrictions on digital photography as a condition of allowing newspaper photographers to cover the games, endangering the right of newspapers to inform their readers and limiting coverage of important events….
“The Board also reminds sports organizations that such restrictions inhibit the free flow of information and the rights of newspapers to practice their profession. In the face of such restrictions on print and digital publication, the World Association of Newspapers also advises all publishers and editors to examine very carefully the terms that their reporters and photographers are being asked to agree to as a condition of their accreditation.”
Back in New York, Kirk Irwin’s photojournalism professor hopes that open lines of communication with the Syracuse University athletic department will resolve confusion over whether Irwin can promote his own work online. “Maybe this will clear up a lot of things for others in the future,” Park said. “Maybe we can come to a clear understanding of what is commercial use, even though a lot of it seems obvious to us.”
Irwin hopes to learn more about photographers’ rights under the university athletic credential, since he never agreed to relinquish copyright on his images. “Ultimately I’d like to be able to place my images back on SportsShooter.com and for the athletic department to realize I’m not posting my images for sale,” Irwin said. “It’s my portfolio and my vehicle to show the type of photographer I am. And to gain feedback from other photographers so I can learn and become a better shooter.”
Sedda Kreabs is a freelance writer and photojournalist based in Los Angeles. Please see a follow-up story on this topic, "College Athletics v. Photojournalists: A Matchup Of Property Rights," by attorney Mickey H. Osterreicher.
