What I Have to Sign to Shoot in the PIT Today

Over the past few years more and more bands are asking aka making you sign a document before you are able to photograph them. The reason I say asking/making is because you are pretty much faced with a decision, you can sign it and shoot or you don’t and you can not.

Some of these documents are way over the top and say things like “the band has the rights for perpetuity to all of your images to be used any way we want without any remuneration’s”.

I am sure you are wondering if I would sign a document like that and the answer is no. Have I been faced with a document like this in the past, yes. But what I did is I crossed out the lines I did not agree with, signed the paper turned it in at the last min and shot the band any way. The majority of the time you are handing these in the day of the event and the person who you give them to is just the collector.

One professional concert photographer who will remain nameless once told me that he signs Jim Marshalls name to the document. The point here is Jim passed away a few years back. The truth of the matter is if they don’t check the paper they have no one of finding you.

The reason I am writing this post is I received the document below to sign in order to photograph Paramore. Let me start of by saying I already signed this document without any major issue. This is a pretty tame request from the artists management to protect their artist. It states the obvious, you can only publish these images/videos for the publication you are hired to photograph for. You can not sell these images for other uses nor turn them into t-shirts, postes etc. All of this is perfectly fine and makes total sense.

The only part of this document that stands out is this:

“Delivery of Materials: Photographer agrees to provide Artist with a set of contact sheets, proof sheets, master-quality audio and/or
audiovisual recordings or other approved copies of each element of the Materials upon Artist’s request and to allow Artist unlimited
promotional usage of the Materials, free of charge.”

Is this really a deal breaker, in my opinion no. Its not asking for you to give up your rights to use the images, its not saying they are going to use your images on their merch. It is simply saying if they have the right to request to see your images in the future and use them for Promotional Use. Sure promotional use could be a tour poster or advertisement but its all a trade off. They are letting you shoot in their pit and in turn if you will let them use your images for promotional use. Thats if they ever ask you for your images which is going to be extremely rare.

I am not posting this because I think the artist is overstepping their boundaries I am posting it because its a fair request. Like I said above I already signed this document and I am looking forward to shooting the Paramore show.