Press association sues IHSA over photo rights
<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The Illinois Press Association is suing the Illinois High School Association over its rules that govern photos taken at school sporting events.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">According to the lawsuit, the IHSA contracts with Visual Image Photography, Inc., a photography company that is granted "exclusive and unlimited access to IHSA tournament locations and photo opportunities." In exchange, VIP pays the IHSA for the privilege.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">At the same time, the IHSA asks newspapers to limit themselves when they ask for media passes to events. The agreement the photographers sign says they will stay only in certain areas and sets guidelines about "secondary use" of photos, or photos that don't appear in the paper but do appear on the Web site or other places.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The IPA believes the practice is flawed and unfair.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">"We have voiced or opposition to the IHSA," David L. Bennett, executive director of the IPA, said in a prepared news release, "but they declined to accommodate the press in a free and fair manner. We can no longer sit on the bench on this."
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The IPA, in conjunction with The State Journal-Register and the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, filed the lawsuit in Sangamon County Circuit Court Thursday and asked that a judge grant a temporary restraining order against the IHSA to lift their sanctions.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">A hearing on the case is set for Monday at 1:30 p.m. before Circuit Judge Patrick Kelley.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The lawsuit alleges that the IHSA rules trying to limit "secondary use" of photos by a newspaper and allowing a private party to have unfettered access amount to prior restraint of the media's free press rights.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Two messages left for an IHSA spokesman went unreturned Thursday.
<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Sue Schmitt, publisher of The State Journal-Register, said the IHSA rule has been around for several years, but his year was moved to the press credentials. She said she sat on an IPA board that met with the IHSA to ask about the change in visibility of the rule. She said she showed the IHSA some of last year's State Journal-Register coverage of Sacred Heart-Griffin High School's state championship win.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">"Those were seen as unacceptable," she said. "We became concerned about what this was going to mean. At the same time, our photographers have noticed more and more restrictions being placed on them in favor of the private company that the IHSA has hired to cover many of these post-season games."
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Schmitt said the IHSA has indicated that the organization feels it "owns the post season" and raised the analogy of professional sports.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">"The key word there is: professional," she said. "The high schools sports we cover, to me, is something we do for the community and definitely not something we do as a financial windfall for us."
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">She said the IHSA seemed to be particularly concerned with the newspaper selling photos online. She noted that there are many more good photos that are taken at events than would ever fit in the newspaper and that The State Journal-Register has been a pioneer for photo galleries and alternative presentations.
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">"The money we make off selling photos doesn't come near what it costs the newspaper to cover the team during the season in terms of manpower."
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Sarah Antonacci can be reached at 788-1529 or sarah.antonacci@sj-r.com.