The Foo Fighters is about to celebrate its 20th birthday with a star-studded Washington D.C. performance on July 4th (despite Dave Grohl's leg injury), but a publication in the city has given the band a black eye regarding its photography contract, which the Washington City Paper labels as "exploitation...pure and simple."
The contract requires that the band must approve of any photos that publications run with the coverage of the concert, and then the media involved could only use those photos or that story. After that, the band would assume copyrights for the images and would also acquire "the right to exploit all or a part of the photos in any and all media, now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in all configurations."
Essentially, the band can reuse your photos without paying you for them. Photos that, by the way, you—the photographer—don't legally own anymore.
The City Paper says that Foo Fighters management claims such contracts are "standard," but cites how acts such as the Rolling Stones don't have such dictatorial standards. The publication opted not to send a photographer at all, instead requesting amateur photographers with cell phones to send in their photos (and yes, they'll be paid if the photos see print).
Granted, the band itself might not even be aware of the rules its lawyers have worked up. We certainly hope so—Dave Grohl seems way too laid back to be so high strung—plus we'd like to think that musicians, justifiably up in arms about the low payouts of streaming, would respect the handiwork of artists in other media.
This is the second big story breaking this week over photo contracts. Taylor Swift's paperwork is even more draconian, demanding control of the photographs after initial use and stipulating that storage equipment can be destroyed by the performer's goons, er, management, if the contract is broken.
