While in Perpignan at the Festival of Photojournalism, negotiations were going on yesterday by phone between the News wire agencies against the International Rugby Board (IRB). In the afternoon, Reuters, AFP, Getty, AP and PressSport (L’Equipe) all agreed to boycott the media coverage – text and photos – of the Rugby world cup which starts in Paris today. Previous discussions and attempted settlements had so far failed.
The IRB wants the agencies to provide a maximum of 50 photos by game, to give up their copyright to IRB who would then sell the images, and to add the partners logo as often as possible in the pictures. Here is a perfect illustration of a confrontation between information and promotion of an event which is owned by a private organization but becomes news to the public. Who owns the rights to information? The wire agencies believe they do as they ensure the coverage, produce and distribute the content, pay the journalists and photographers. The want to avoid a precedent.
The “50 pictures” issue is the following : the IRB has sold the TV right to channels. Now put together 300 photos in a slide show and you have just created a great small video which then can be viewed by on the internet, Youtube for example, or on mobile phones.
I am not sure that impact on the agencies revenues will be as minimal as some told me yesterday. Yes, magazines will publish and thus buy other stories. But worldwide sports events have always produced immediate and archival sales.
One sure thing : the lack of coverage would undercut brands in their sponsoring actions, fail to promote Rugby worldwide and prevent world fans from reading and watching as many images of their favorite teams.
The Guardian
Interesting French weblog coverage here, there.