SPRINGFIELD, IL (March 8, 2008) - An Illinois Senate panel voted this week to back a bill that bans restrictions on news photographers at high school tournaments.
The Senate Education Committee voted 8-1 in favor of a bill to ban the Illinois High School Association from putting restrictions on the resale of news pictures taken at the state's 35 high school championship sporting events, speech, and debate events.
IHSA has contended that they have a right to contract with a private photography firm and because they bear the right of organizing the events, newspapers do not have the right to make a profit reselling photographs from their events.
Sen. James DeLeo (D-Chicago) said no restrictions should be placed on photographers or newspapers. DeLeo sponsored the proposed legislation. Having cleared committee, the bill now goes to the full Senate.
Under legal and media pressure, in February the IHSA told members of the Illinois Press Association that IHSA would allow photographers with valid press credentials to have access to the floor of a girls state basketball championship game in Bloomington without being required to sign IHSA's waivers or releases.
Prior that that move, photographers were buying admission tickets to events and shooting them from the stands to avoid signing the credential agreement, an agreement that placed restrictions on them and their newspapers.
Back in January, after law suits and counter suits between IHSA and the IPA, Illinois lawmakers got involved in the fight over whether the IHSA can prevent newspaper photographers from covering public school academic and sporting championship events games, and whether they can regulate the secondary use of photographs and videos that come from the events.
Two Illinois lawmakers, De Leo and Rep. Joseph M. Lyons (D-Chicago), proposed legislation intended to resolve the conflict and to keep it from happening again. House Bill 4582, if voted on and signed into law, will provide open access to all competitions, from elementary school to high school levels, including sports and academic activities.
In November 2007 the IPA, representing Illinois newspapers, sued the IHSA over the issue of access to high school championship events and photo sales. The parties said they were trying to reach an out of court settlement on the issue of "secondary use" of images right up until the end of November, when several Illinois newspapers were surprised to find that their photographers were shut out from the eight championship football games and the title games because IHSA said they were not "in compliance" on the issue of print sales.
In December 2007 the IHSA filed a counter suit in Sangamon County Circuit Court in Springfield asking a judge to declare that IHSA has the exclusive right to sell photographs taken at high school sporting events, and the right to impose limits on how newspapers use photographs, and for permission to restrict newspapers' access to IHSA games if editors and publishers fail to comply with IHSA polices.
The countersuit named IPA, the Peoria Journal Star, The State Register-Journal in Springfield, and The Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, and asked for at lease $50,000 in damage payments. An IHSA statement issued after the suit was filed said the action was necessary "to bring a definitive resolution" to the dispute.
IPA filed a motion to dismiss, stating that IHSA is a "state actor" and therefore bound by the Illinois constitution regarding freedom of the press and free speech guarantees, and as such they cannot exert "prior restraint" upon newspapers in both their coverage and dissemination of photography of newsworthy events, and that IHSA has no cause of action against the newspapers, and that IHSA cannot legally contract with a third party granting exclusive license to cover public events.
IHSA has had a contract with a third party - Visual Image Photography Inc. of Cedarburg, WI - since 2001. The agreement grants the commercial photography business "exclusive rights" to take and sell photographs from state athletic championship games.
IPA's motion to dismiss also claims that IHSA's contract with VIP Inc. is "against public policy" and that as a result there have been actual damages to the newspapers (monetary loss) while the newspapers were engaged in the constitutionally privileged activity of gathering news.
