[rocknation]

WashingtonCityPaper: ...If we (had) signed...the contract that Foo Fighters' management company gave to our freelance photographer...we would have agreed to: the band approving the photos which run in the City Paper; only running the photos once and with only one article; and all copyrights would transfer to the band. Then...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.

That is exploitation of photographers...pure and simple...(W)hat the Taylor Swift-Apple blowup was about...In a conversation with the band's management, City Paper was told that these types of contracts are "standard" and they "protect the band." But that's not even close to being true...

If you take a great photo of the show, send it to us...If we run it in next week's print edition, we'll pay you for it. And we won't ask you to sign over the copyright or your first born, either.

I never had to sign anything, but I shot mostly local bands, and that was back in the olden days when you had to send out your film to be developed, LOL! A noble sentiment on City Paper's part...or is it?

PetaPixel.com: Last week, the Washington City Paper made a stand against what it considered an unfair concert photography contract presented by the Foo Fighters...(H)owever, the City Paper did something even worse to photographers than the Foo Fighters ever could have: they called on the fans to submit photos of the show, and they offered to pay for them...

The ramifications are going to be far reaching to the concert photographer, the concert attendee, the artist, and the publications themselves...By crowdsourcing their content, City Paper has effectively removed...(the) concert photographer...position...We simply cannot compete with 3,000 people all hoping to make a quick buck off their photos...

If no one is occupying the photo pit, the front rows of your local concert hall will become a wall of iPhones, with everyone hoping to recoup the a portion of the cost of their ticket by selling a shot...we (concert photographers)...shoot 3 songs, we don’t use flash, we don’t do video, and we cull through our coverage...Will the new amateur, on spec, freelance iPhoneographer follow these same rules?

...With even more smartphones in the air, popping off flashes and bootlegging blurry grainy images and video with blown out sound straight to Instagram...the response....(f)or some artists will just be “no photography...”

No photography for anyone? Are the venues going to start banning cellphones? It's more likely that more bands will hire one official tour photographer like Bon Jovi did, and distribute material to the local press immediately afterwards.

Here is where you can find the results of City Paper's Foo Fighters concert coverage: the closeup of the DJ is as good as it gets:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/s...Stadium-July-4