Foo Fighters Criticised For "Exploitation Of Photographers"

Foo Fighters are slated to return to the stage on Saturday night after frontman Dave Grohl broke his leg live on stage last month, but the band have now been criticised by a Washington D.C. newspaper which believes the band’s live photography contract is unfair and exploitative.

As Spin reports, the Washington City Paper, who were set to photograph Foo Fighters’ Saturday night Independence Day/ 20th anniversary blowout show — featuring the likes of Buddy Guy, Gary Clark Jr., Heart, Joan Jett and LL Cool J — have published a blog post entitled, “Why We’re Not Photographing the Foo Fighters.”

In their post, Washington City Paper say Foo Fighters’ photography contract “to be blunt, sucks”. The paper has shared a copy of the contract, which can be viewed in full below, and says in its blog post:

“If we signed it, we would have agreed to: the band approving the photos which run in the City Paper; only running the photos once and with only one article; and all copyrights would transfer to the band.

“Then, here’s the fun part, the band would have ‘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’ without any approval or payment or consideration for the photographer.

“That is exploitation of photographers, pure and simple… By signing that contract, the band could then use the creative work of our photographer in their future marketing materials or to resell them through their site.”

Washington City Paper says Foo Fighters’ management told them the contract is “standard”, and is put in place to “protect the band”. Washington City Paper believes both these reasons are untrue.

It’s unclear as to whether or not members of Foo Fighters know the details of their photography contracts, but Washington City Paper is planning to pay members of the band’s Saturday audience for photos taken from within the crowd, rather than agreeing to the Foo’s contract.

“And we won’t ask you to sign over the copyright or your first born, either,” the paper adds. Burn.

In a similar incident, Taylor Swift was recently criticised by The Irish Times for placing “exceedingly restrictive” copyright demands on photographers at her shows — something with the publication says “has become increasingly common in the live music business in recent years”.

Catch Foo Fighters’ photography contract in full, below.

Gallery: Foo Fighters @ ANZ Stadium, Sydney 26.02.15 / Photos: Paul Cush

Foo Fighters’ Photography Contract (Via Washington City Paper)