Sports Photography and Rights to Publish

[spike2000]

I work for a sports website. We have articles, photos, etc. It is an ad supported website. I am trying to determine what pictures I am allowed to post on my website. We mainly focus on high school sports but we will also sometimes cover college and professional sports. When we cover the pro games, we always need a press pass. We always take our own photographs. The press pass will usually state something like the following.

"The credential confers on Bearer a limited, non-exclusive and non-transferable license to take photographs of the Events, and to allow the entity that engaged the Bearer to take the photographs to use such photographs, only for news coverage..."

sounds good, but then...

"...separate consent is required to transmit...any pictures or photographs featuring...trademarks, names, logos..."

The first part sounds like it is legal to go to a game, take pictures, and post them on the site for news coverage. The second part sounds like it would be illegal to include in any of those pictures, trademarks, logos, etc. This would eliminate the use of most all pictures (except maybe a dugout or home plate). So what can I post?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Remember that it is a commerical website (ads are running).

Thanks

Example Policies:
NCAA Policy: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaah...dential+policy
Minor League Baseball Policy (at the bottom): http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/d...pplication.pdf

[Mr. Knowitall]

The press pass covers those items that the entity can authorize you to photograph. It doesn't own the intellectual property of other entities, and thus is not in a position to authorize you to utilize that intellectual property. By the same token, if your use is lawful, the exclusion of that material from the press pass has no effect on your rights.

[spike2000]

Thanks for the reply.

So in layman's terms would you say that (with the above example in mind) that I could post pictures of home plate (no logos, etc) from the game but I could not post pictures showing any trademarks?

What about pictures of players where trademarks are not shown (not photoshopped out but simply out of frame)?

[Kereo]

[I]accourding to the photographers Copyright Law a person can take a photo of anything ,anytime, anywhere ; for the exception of the tree in Monterey,CA made famous by Ansel Adams.It's what you do with your photos >Pro sports have there own staff photographers which that company has the rights to, for a profit; you can make a poster from a concert or sporting avent but you don't have the Rights to profit from those photos. A press pass is only to get you closer, a back stage pass is the same it does not give you the "RIGHTS" to make profit from. These poperatzy photographers get away with just about anything because of this law; like chasing down Princess Di and still kept clicking away as she begged for help, she may have lived if just one of them put the camera down and gave aide,How sad for her family and all of who loved and respected her it was a great loss to the world . So you can takeyour picture but unless you have rights to sell for profit you can get in alot of expencives messes

[LyonLegal]

The press pass is basically an agreement between you and the venue that you are taking pictures for news purposes. If you start printing posters of your photos they can come after you.
The second part is a way of protecting themselves. If you take a photo with a logo, oh, say Budweiser, showing in the background, then you take that photo and put it on your baseball themed micro-brewed beer, people will see the beer with the Budweiser logo and think Budweiser had something to do with that beer. Budweiser can then sue you. They could also sue the venue for letting you take pictures but the venue will then hold up he pass and say "he agreed not to do that so it's not our fault."

If, indeed, all you are doing with the photos is using them for news reporting purposes, then you have an exception to the trademark laws as well (and even without an exception, you are not likely to be confusing any consumers so have that defense to TM infringement). Plus, the advertisers buy space on the walls because they want their logo seen. If you put it in the paper because it's in the background of a particularly interesting catch, the advertisers will be thrilled because more people are seeing their logo.