A newspaper has sent a cartoonist to cover a Foo Fighters concert as the campaign for fairer concert photography contracts heats up.
Taylor Swift admirably shook things up a few weeks ago when she took a stand against Apple in defence of musicians' royalties. Within a few days the internet was alive with public outcry though when it was revealed that Swift's management imposes some pretty strict restrictions on the creative, commercial and legal rights of photographers at her concerts.
And it doesn't seem to be an isolated case. A few weeks ago the Washington City Post published an article explaining why they wouldn't be sending a photographer to cover the Foo Fighters upcoming show. The contract the band's management gave to the paper's freelance photographer would be hard to believe if it wasn't written in black and white.
"If we signed it we would have agreed to: the band approving the photos which run in the [paper]; only running the photos once and with only one article; and all copyrights would transfer to the band," wrote Washington City Post correspondent Steve Cavendish. "Then, here's the fun part, the band would have 'the right to exploit all or a part of the photos in any and all media, now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in all configurations' without any approval or payment or consideration for the photographer."
The latest shot in what looks like being an ongoing battle, comes from Quebec newspaper Le Soleil. Similarly frustrated by the terms of the Foo Fighters contract, Le Soleil sent a photographer to cover the concert from outside the official media area, where the contract would not apply, and also sent a cartoonist, Francis Desharnais, to cover the concert from closer quarters (see above)!
While the Foo Fighters' lawyers thought to cover just about every contingency – including copyright ownership on distant planets millions of years into the future – someone at at the firm forgot to put anything in the contract about pen-and-paper sketches. Oh dear. As they say in Quebec, Vive Le Soleil!