BTS at Sports Events, instagram, rules and regs...

[gibtheo]

I may be a little late to the party with instagram as a marketing tool but I'm in the process of setting up an instagram account for my professional work. So for me that is sports stuff, and all kinds of other stuff. Obviously, most of the other stuff I shoot or assist with is totally fine (with consent of client) to put on instagram, product shoots, food, location stuff. I'm talking about iPhone BTS shots of equipment set ups, and things to give a bit of insight into what happens on my shoots.

So what about behind the scenes at sports events? I mean, I'm pretty sure that the low level stuff I do wouldn't be a problem. How about accredited events? I'm talking about say a shot of equipment, other bits and bobs to keep followers up with what you have been doing. I'm presuming that even iPhone snaps in an accredited event would be a no no? I'm sure that each event may have it's own policies too, and I'm not talking about putting actions shots on there, just the periphery. No players, no images during game time even, just say a shot of the photographer's room or something like that.

I regularly see people (photographers) taking sneaky shots of the ground they are working at on their iPhone's which I presume are just for personal reference, but are they technically against the rules?! For ease of reference, though I'm not in the UK, feel free to use dataco rules as an example...

Would an accredited photographer posting a photo of the press room or his camera bag at the side of the pitch onto instagram be breaking the rules?

I notice that @Tobers uses some shots on his blog, maybe you know the answers?!

Also, I believe that any image uploaded to instagram is then useable by instagram worldwide for whatever they like. Does this cause another problem? Though I wouldn't really care if they wanted to use a shot of my camera bag, not that they would. I'd only post stuff that was of no commercial use.

This is very confusing to me...

 

[Tobers]

It is very confusing and I've developed my own "policy" which I run alongside my agency's social media use policy.

My general approach is that, if it's a picture a member of the general public could take and post on their twitter/instagram with the basic kit that they could take into a ground (e.g. a phone), then that's OK for my social media. This could for example be a picture of the seating & pitch inside the stadium. In fact my agency expects its photographers to tweet that we are at a match, with a shot of the stadium or suchlike taken from a phone to accompany the tweet. I wouldn't sell a picture like this though (non-commercial use clauses are likely for general public as part of ts and cs for entry).

If you couldn't have taken the picture without being in a position only granted to accredited photographers, with kit only allowed in because you are accredited, I would not use directly on social media. An example is a shot of Jose Mourinho taken across the pitch with a 400mm lens.

If you are thinking of behind the scenes (BTS) pics of a press room or your kit on the pitch, I tend to use those when either I am on my own accreditation, or with express permission of the accreditation holder (ie my agency usually).

For any twittering/instagramming/facebooking of pics post match when I've been under my agency's accreditation, I will only ever show pics that are on the agency's website showing their watermark, and linking back to the agency's website to push traffic to them. If my own accreditation and I own the copyright, I'll link back to my own website to push traffic there. Plenty of examples on Twitter of this > https://BANNED/FocusImagesLtd.

With my World Cup blog posts for example, which included a mix of BTS, match, training and out & about in Brazil pictures, my agency was the copyright holder and accreditation holder of anything in a stadium, training centre or press room (i.e. that required accreditation to enter), and we agreed before the event that I would blog daily as a means to push traffic to the agency's web site, so all pics taken when at an accredited event linked back to them.

So basically it boils down to the following three categories:

1) if it's your accreditation and you're within the rules of the accrediting organisation (if any) then it's up to you what you post.
2) if it's your agency's accreditation, then you need their permission and it needs to be within the rules of the accrediting organisation.
3) if it's a pic a general member of the public could take from a non-privileged non-media position in a stadium and you're not selling it, then it's probably ok.
4) If it's outside a stadium and in public areas, fill your boots

That's how I do it anyway. Hope that helps.

 

[whitey]

I do just about the same as @Tobers

I usually tweet a pic of a stadium i'm in from a phone or post one on Instagram and after games I would only ever post pictures with agency copyright / logo on them.

I've not really blogged anything other than publications but its something I want to do, again this would need to be approved by agency with a link pointing to them.

 

[gibtheo]

Wow, thanks so much for that guys. Seems a great approach to take. All this social media stuff can seem a bit of a drag at times but it's free advertising, and with the right hashtags you can directly find your target audience I guess.

Must make more of an effort to keep up with it!