FIFA allows text on World Cup photos after all
03.03.2006
So says FIFA president Sepp Blatter in an open letter to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and a group of news agencies who are complaining about FIFA’s media guidelines for covering the World Cup.
Sepp Blatter’s open letter comes in response to an open letter from WAN last month where WAN regrets what it sees as FIFA’s unilateral decisison to abandon talks between the two organisations about the restrictions FIFA has placed on coverage of the World Cup.
WAN has been negotiating with FIFA to remove the restrictions since September 2005 and met with Mr Blatter and the federation's lawyers and other representatives on 9 January, when the two sides agreed to create a joint working party to seek solutions.
WAN and the news agencies are particularly unhappy about FIFA rules which stipulate that
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Only five photos per match half and two per extra time, including penalty 'shoot-outs', can be published on web sites
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Photos can only be published at the final whistle, never during matches
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No text or image can be superimposed over any published photograph
WAN and the news agencies are also concerned that FIFA might hold news agencies responsible if their clients break the embargo or publish too many photos.
In his open letter to WAN, Sepp Blatter stresses that FIFA regulations of the use of photographs on newspaper websites are not open to negotiation because of contracts already made with mobile and broadband companies.
But at the same time he says that
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No restrictions apply to the editing of photographs and headlines may run through photographs etc.
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FIFA will not hold news agencies responsible for infringements but the subscribers themselves
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Written Internet reporting is not affected in any way
In this Sepp Blatter goes further than the Accreditation Terms & Conditions currently published on FIFA’s website. But the FIFA president also says that he is awaiting feedback from WAN so that accrediation terms can be finalised.
See earlier article: