Addendum to "New York Times Freelancer Contract: "This issue is at the heart of our survival as freelance photographers"", "Getty Images: "No Shots of a Cheap Shot, and Some Wonder Why"" and "Questions about Getty's objectivity"Bill Werde/NYT in "Photographers and N.F.L. Collide Over Licensing Plan for Archives":
On one side is the National Football League, which wants to send its archive of approximately three million images of players and games to a third-party photo agency to license; Getty Images and WireImage are the two most likely partners. The archive includes images ranging from iconic N.F.L. players to Super Bowl highlights. Opposing the move are 75 of the several hundred photographers who created much of the archive in the last 40 years and still hold the copyrights to the images. Without their permission, the photographers say, the N.F.L. has no right to license the archive to anyone. [..]
If 90 percent of the 75 photographers approve the deal, including affirmation from 16 photographers whose collections the league has decided are the most valuable, the archive would be licensed to WireImage. WireImage would still oblige any photographers who wanted their images returned. If the contract proposal is rejected, the league is expected to begin returning the photos in the archive to individual photographers, while making a deal with Getty for the management of all images from future games.
How will that turn out? And no, not Getty again, please.
A reader at EditorialPhoto maliciously responded:
The article on the controversy surrounding on the ongoing contract dispute between the National Football League and its contributing photographers is especially interesting considering the Times' failure to report on the controversy surrounding the contract dispute between the New York Times and its freelance photographers over the Times' recent contract offer. When will we see that story covered in their newspaper?
