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Jason Seldon's Letter

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CDA News has reported both on the open letter from Taylor Swift to Apple and the open leter response to the recording artist by photographer Jason Seldon. In Swift’s letter, she says Apple is being unfair to recording artists by giving subscribers free access for three months and not pay recording artists royalties. Seldon’s letter is becoming a voice for photojournalism in the 21st century, saying what so many photographers have faced during what is best described as a rights war with the music industry.

Seldon’s response to Swift’s rant says that it is hypocritical of her to take this stance when photographers at her concerts are forced to sign over the rights to their photos to her and her management company, Firefly Entertainment, Inc. …show more content…

Three months, not perpetually. The fact is, promotion and publicity both are considered commercial use, and photographers should be paid a licensing fee for photos used in this manor.

In all honesty, Swift is not the mastermind behind this practice. It is something that photographers have battled with for a long time. These contracts, or rights grabs, have been going on for years. Typically it is seen with artists that would have no problem with the financial aspect of paying a normal licensing fee.

While Seldon’s letter to Swift got a lot of press coverage, photographer Jared Polin also stepped up against Live Nation. Live Nation is the owner of Ticketmaster and various concert venues around the United States. Live Nation sent out an email soliciting for a house photographer to work concerts at the Ascend Amphitheater. This was a unpaid position and besides the photographer signing away their rights to the photos without any monetary compensation, they were required to either shoot every single show on the music calendar for the venue, or find a substitute, also for free, to shoot what they could not …show more content…

He stated he had never seen the release. He said that he has always allowed photographers there for the whole show and to allow them to shoot and use the photos however they wanted. If he or his band wanted to use photos, a mutual agreement was always made. However, he did not approve any new agreement that was a rights grab and he was going fix this error. However, Franti’s response is rare. Normally there is no response from management companies or artists.

Now, photographers, newspapers, and other photojournalism outlets are taking a stand against these artists and their management companies by taking the war to them. The Irish Times not only would not have their photographer sign away the rights to photos he was taking for the newspaper to Swift, they published an article stating that due to this contract for the concert photos, there would be no photographs from the show with the review article. In addition, the Washington City Paper attacked the rights grabbing contract of the Foo Fighters by publishing an article about why they are not shooting their

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