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Student Photographer Threatened With Suspension For Sports Photos
sandbagger writes: Anthony Mazur is a senior at Flower Mound High School in Texas who photographed school sports games and other events. Naturally he posted them on line. A few days ago he was summoned to the principal's office and threatened with a suspension and 'reporting to the IRS' if he didn't take those 4000 photos down. Reportedly, the principal's rationale was that the school has copyright on the images and not him.
Go ahead and let them know:
http://fmhs.lisd.net/apps/staf...
Lail, Sonya Principal
lailsk@lisd.net 469-713-5192
Most professional sports teams copyright their games. Even tweeting the score can get you in trouble. I guess this is no different.
can we count the differences?
professional sports teams play in private settings where access is limited to ticket holders
professional sports teams are paid for their work, they have signed contracts explicitly detailing their rights to their likeness in photographs and other media
high school sports teams play in public settings where anyone is free to view and take pictures
high school athletes are not paid for their work, they have not signed any contractual agreements governing the distribution of their likeness in photographs
if joe sports reporter is free to take pictures for the newspaper
if the parents are free to take photos of their own children
then surely the students are free to take pictures
No. It does not work like that. If you borrow my guitar and write a hit song, it's your song, the copyright is yours. If you borrow my camera and take a Pulitzer-winning photo, it's your photo, the copyright is yours. Copyright goes to the creator of a work, not to the owner of any tools incidental to the creation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Incorrect. The game is played on posted grounds. The school charges an admission fee to the game. Many Texas schools have agreements with local TV/Radio Stations for broadcast rights. The public school in Texas that my son attends states right in the school handbook that photos of students taken on school property require a release from the students parent before being published in a public forum.
they couldn't possibly hope to recover the $100k+ in legal fees.
$100,000? That's just a tiny bit inflated. My legal fees for two felonies were slightly more than $5,000. It's not going to cost six digits to get judicial relief in a circumstance like this. It probably doesn't even get the lawsuit stage, a demand letter sent to the school district and reviewed by their attorney would probably suffice. "Yeah, we're going to lose this one. Wipe the student's record clean, tell him you're sorry, and move on."
There's plenty of stupidity in the American legal system to make fun of without making stuff up.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
He is a taking a yearbook class, using the schools equipment, and at the end of the year the book will be sold to the students. If the school did it correctly his parents would have signed a consent form giving the school the rights to the work for publication in the yearbook. The question is did they give the school ownership of the copyright like work for hire, exclusive publication rights for a time period, or just nonexclusive rights to publish the work?
He is a taking a yearbook class, using the schools equipment, and at the end of the year the book will be sold to the students. If the school did it correctly his parents would have signed a consent form giving the school the rights to the work for publication in the yearbook. The question is did they give the school ownership of the copyright like work for hire, exclusive publication rights for a time period, or just nonexclusive rights to publish the work?
From the article:
In addition, the District’s Board Policy Manual explicitly states “a student shall retain all rights to work created as part of the instruction or using District technology resources.”