Swift’s people responded by stating that “any photographer shooting The 1989 World Tour has the opportunity for further use of said photographs with management’s approval,” implying that Sheldon misinterpreted the contract. Consequence Of Sound puts the issue in simple terms for those of us who didn’t excel at contract law in college: “The contract circumnavigates copyright all together by allowing Swift and her companies to use the images in promotions without ever paying for them. In other words, the photographers ‘own’ the images, but can’t do anything with them, and Swift can use them in any ‘non-commercial’ way she sees fit.” Presumably, “non-commercial” implies social media posts and not tour programs, official websites, that poster on your bedroom door, or album art.
Now another freelance photographer has released the contracts that are required to shoot this year’s 1989 World Tour. Apparently, this contract is even more strict, with the rules not only containing the “rights grab” that Sheldon mentioned, but a clause that implies that if a photographer doesn’t follow the rules, “Firefly Entertainment, Inc., the Artist or the Related Entities may confiscate and/or destroy the technology or devices that contain the master files of the Photographs.” Seems pretty mean, Taylor:
T. Swift—the person, not the business entity—has not released a statement on all this yet. Realistically, though, the singer-songwriter is probably not going to come into the pit and smash your DSLR to bits. In fact, Swift probably has no idea how all this legal mumbo jumbo works, and doesn’t really care. She’s got too many dates to go on and too many songs to write.
