Re: [Leica] Re: concert shooting (was Leica Camera-Handling)

["Dave Fisher" <tekapo@golden.net>]

> From: Bmceowen@aol.com
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: concert shooting (was Leica Camera-Handling)

> Hey, I don't understand why musicians don't want photos taken but they
don't.
> Apparently it is a copyright isssue or at least an attempt on their part
to
> preserve the value of their image. Photographers, of all people, ought to
be
> sensitive to the copyright concerns of others. A rock concert is a
> semi-public event so one could make the argument that anything that takes
> place in public is fair game. But to get into  the show you have to buy a
> ticket which, as I understand it, is something of a license to attend or
at
> least an agreement with certain stipulations. Usually one of the
stipulations
> is no pictures. How would we, as photographers, like it if people so
> blatantly disregarded OUR contracts and copyright protection statements?
> Bottom line, though, is that I just generally have a problem with deceit.
>
> Bob (call me Killjoy) McEowen

Well, we can agree to disagree, but this sounds like piffle. If I take a
better and more representative photograph of a performer from an audience
than some glam studio shots that management paid tens-of-thousands of
dollars for, I'm supposed to apologise for this? I'm somehow stealing
somebody else's copyright? I'm not stealing anybody's compositions or
recordings and pirating them for profit here. It's all about documentation.
I go back to the Charlie Parker argument. Without the bootleggers, the world
would be deprived of some of this greatest recorded music of all time. Those
tapers don't have to apologise to anybody for anything. Without those boots,
much of Parker's catalogue would never have seen the light of day, that's a
proven fact. We should be thanking them for doing the job. When it comes to
photography, think of the classic iconic photograph (I think by Jim
Marshall, somebody else might be able to confirm or deny this) of Jimi
Hendrix torching his guitar at Monterey Pop. Unless I'm wildly mistaken,
that was shot from the audience. It's now part of our collective cultural
memory, and perhaps THE definitive photograph of the greatest rock performer
of all time, possibly the most dynamic musical performer of the past
century. Two and three hundred years from now, we'll be dead, but people
will still be talking about Hendrix and many of them will be thinking of him
in relation to that photograph. You're telling me that we would all be
better off without it. I say otherwise.