Taylor Swift Eases Bad Blood With Photographers

Jul 22, 2015

Topic: Copyright
Time Investment: 5 minutes
Suggested Product: Ultimate Copyright Kit

 

Last month Taylor Swift came under fire from the photography community for some claims of outrageous provisions in her concert contracts.  

Bottom line: Her contracts were accused of being “rights-grabbing” and putting photographers in poor bargaining positions – while she sat claiming to Apple that musicians, fellow artists, needed to be fed too.  That’s paraphrased in my opinion, of course.

You can read my plea to Taylor Swift here – and she finally answered by revising her contracts. While she didn’t answer me, she answered our community.

 

Provisions Revised

The first major hot-topic provision that was revised regarded the forcible removal of images from a photographer’s camera.  So while Swift’s representatives agree to not destroy images from a photographer’s camera, the contract still states that a photographer may be subject to have photos deleted “if it is determined that you have taken photographs beyond the rules of this agreement”.

The second hot-topic provision swirled around copyright ownership – which is a major hot topic button for photographers in a digital age where copyright infringement and “rights grabbing” is rampant.  The revised provision allows for photographers (or publications) to retain copyright ownership of the photographs taken.

The third hot-topic provision, that ties in with copyright ownership, that was removed completely revolved around the original stipulation that images may only be used one time.  The photograph may be used, in accordance with contract, more than one time.

Here is a copy of the contract from Mashable.com 

Your stand to Apple in the name of musicians value has also been seen with your revisions to this contracts. 

We, photographers, consider this a win in the artist community and for copyright integrity.  

 

At least for today, as technology and law changes – contracts must also change.  By TSwift listening, it is safe to say the bad blood is easing up. Now we can all shake it off.

 

 


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