New twist in IHSA-IPA pissing match

The IHSA does understand that newspapers are businesses and must find ways to make money, including selling photos from the high school tournaments, right? Why the fuck would the newspapers give the photos away for free? The newspapers own the photos.

 

Angola, the IHSA sold the rights to sell photos to a private company, and is trying to protect its contract.

 

Which is fine, but in protecting their own interests, they're damaging the interests of others. I definitely think a court is going to have to rule on this one.

 

Can you go to a Garth Brooks concert with a press pass and take photos and sell them? I don't think so. They own the event. They have the right to set the terms of letting you into the event.

The IHSA owns the state championships. They are granting reasonable access. A free press does not have the right to attend an event and profit from it.

It doesn't matter if newspapers have done it for years. Doesn't mean it's right.

It doesn't sound to me like they are denying reasonable access for media for coverage of the event or even for using photos in the paper for future features, etc.

Sorry to take a stand that might not be popular, but it's the way I see it.

 

Is the IHSA a public entity, like a public school? If so, wouldn't that be completely different from a Garth Brooks concert?

 

I was trying to illustrate that just because the press has a right to cover an event, it doesn't have a right to profit from that same event.

 

The point would be fine, except that because we're talking about a taxpayer-funded event, which this essentially is since it involves public schools, would in the minds of many nix the proprietary aspect. Can George Bush copyright his State of the Union address? (Actually, that's an interesting question...)

 

Is a privately run association of public and private schools private, and allowed to enforce property rights (such as selling rights to sell photos) or public? If the answer is public, then isn't the Big Ten, incorporated in Illinois, in the same category?
Good one for the legal beagles out there.

 

So what if the Chicago Tribune bought the photo rights to the Illinois tournaments?
Would anyone think it was out of line if they told other newspapers that they could shoot the tournaments, but not sell pictures that weren't print published.

 

By this argument we shouldn't be allowed to cover anything, irregardless of whether or not pictures are being sold. People pick up newspapers (at a profit to them) in order to read coverage of events.

 

But they belong to a private and voluntary organization, they'll argue, and not subject to that taxpayer crapola...

 

irregardless indeed. We our journulisses!