As I said it caught me by surprise. My photographers are volunteers and asking them to provide a CD of all images taken sounded a bit off.
Say they take 500 shots and they requested high res so this would be a DVD. OK Cost of DVD & Mailing is say about $5.00 not much but time consuming. We do this for the users and the tracks not making money off it.
I have no problems with sending a few photos from the event via email but requesting a copy of every photo taken on a CD/DVD.
As I said before I have been to many tracks and not one has asked this.
I have been to Delaware and John is a great ambassador to the Speedway. John did more then I expected the track to do and I did a write up on how impressed I was with the track. same with Sunset, Kawartha and others.
If anyone of these tracks said Evan I like that shot you took at our track can we use it for promotions. I would say give me the email address and I will send to you.
I would love for a track to use a photo that was taken by me or my photographers.
We get a lot of new people that are not familiar with all tracks they can go to see racing at in Canada.
We have a lot of people that read the boards as guests that have come via search engines and having your track mentioned here helps promote the track as Sunset & Delaware are in the top 10 of searches. 4 tracks are in the in the top 10 searches.
OK lets look it at it another way.
I noticed tracks pay Magazine or Media Outlets to advertise events. I post these for free. Maybe I should be charging these tracks to post these event messages?? No this is not what we are about we want to work with the tracks and help them grow.
Clearly by the length, depth and flexibility in the post, it’s a much different response than a generic "give us your pictures", period. I think it’s fair to say handled this that way CRO would be there taking pictures and covering the action.
...and CRO has been to a number of Delaware events in the past. Arguably, through the Shadow reports, they're there every week. It is possible that Evan could have received a much less detailed approach than the one taken by Delaware. Our media policy is one that changes constantly but is designed with flexibility in mind. It would be foolish to stonewall the media out of the event. We work to find the specific concerns that each outlet has and move to address them.
There are more detailed / concrete examples of when media licensing and cooperation becomes more important. For example, what if someone is posting videos of all your speedway's races for the night on Youtube end to end with professional recording equipment? Imagine if a concert were to be posted in such a manner! It is important for a speedway to establish (just as other large entertainment venues, such as concerts) that the rights to the event are with the speedway itself.
Declaring that the speedway possesses rights need not be threatening or overbearing, it's simply a fact. Having ownership of those rights also means we are responsible for managing them. This means we are very cooperative in how we give permission on those rights, to make sure they are used in a manner that works for everyone.
I'll change my opinion from all track are missing the boat promoting themselves, to some.
Guess a PR guy is a good idea 😉
I consider good PR a solid investment, yes. ;D
I remember one day at Cayuga Speedway when they treated the regulars photographers and writers that attend the track on a regular basis really bad because they had the Nascar Shootout.
They did everything for TSN and other big Media Outlets and treated the smaller ones like garbage.
I remember over hearing the big outlets complaining that the track was cheap not enough good food and not much free stuff. The guys from the smaller outlets were talking and saying they are not returning just for the way they were treated. One of these guys worked for PRN. (Not really a small media outlet) They said they have never been treated so bad like they were treated at Cayuga that day. Getting kicked out of area's because they were not from TSN or Toronto Star.
The funny thing was they got more coverage from the smaller outlets and it seemed the big guys were there for all the free stuff and didn't care too much about the event.
Cayuga pissed off a lot of photographers and writers that day.
I brought my brother in law with me that day too help out and he got so pissed off that he sat in the car while I did my stuff. He never did return to Cayuga as a fan and him and his friends have went to other tracks.
I have been doing this for 12 years now and I don't feel we are in the same boat as bloggers. I know we are not TSN or Toronto Sun but we do provide a lot of information to Race Fan and Drivers/Teams
The big media outlets only seem to want to cover these big events where we want to help the track and cover all events no matter how big or small. We do get a big readership on here and I myself have introduced a lot of people to the smaller tracks.
I guess what I'm saying is tracks need to work hand in hand with small places like CRO and there are a few tracks that do and it works out well for them and CRO.
If we want to get really messy with that, as a driver do I not have rights to my performance on the track? I don’t recall signing that off to anyone..
Again, this comes down to cases as to under what circumstances the speedway would assert its rights.
Delaware Speedway has utilized a media wavier for at least the last 10 years which provides the speedway with all manner of media rights to images and on-track activities. In fact it reads in part:
ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONAL RELEASE: Delaware Speedway or its duly authorized agents and assigns, may use the applicant’s name, likeness and photographs of the applicant or the applicants cars, including photographs of the applicant or applicant’s cars taken during the event, in any way, medium or material, for promoting, advertising, recording, souvenirs or reporting any Delaware Speedway sanctioned events before, during and after such events, including but not limited to television and radio broadcasts, film production, video tape reproductions, website, internet souvenir sales and the like, and do hereby relinquish all rights thereto for these purposes.
If reading that release for the first time, it may seem surprising or outright shocking, but think about it for a moment. In essence, this is why driver’s can be put on the front of the souvenir program each year - - or how the speedway can put drivers in the television ad. It’s also how third parties like official track photographers and video teams are able to operate without having to re-sign every driver in the competition. Without these basic rights, it would be very difficult (arguably impossible) for a speedway to operate.
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Back to event recordings: The speedway has had cases it is keeping an eye on where entire events have been posted end to end - - not by a race team focusing on their own driver, but of the entire event in general. Such postings, if done regularly and at professional quality without a media license, are not acceptable. The underlined section there is key to understanding this. Again, it’s important to take into account the overall circumstances of a filming. Why is it being filmed? Who filmed it? Where will it be used? Is it a one-time posting? A weekly deal? A media license answers all of these questions and helps establish meaningful partnerships with media in a way that enhances value for the speedway and its drivers, not detracts from it.
Again, the language sounds harsh and perhaps even off-putting, but there are very real reasons why these rights are controlled by the speedway.
You cannot walk into a movie theatre and record and entire movie and post it to youtube, nor can you walk into most concert venues and film the entire event in HD and post it to the internet. While hard for spectators or competitors to admit, the posting of events in such a manner can be problematic.
Remember also, the ability for high-quality video to be distributed by the internet in any meaningful way is relatively new, within the last 5 years. When I started in speedway PR, the creation of a youtube channel was “cutting edge”.
Alternately, the speedway controls the rights to live publication and broadcast of events. There are reasons we do not live-post to twitter the blow-by-blow on track action or link up a live video feed (a common request, typically from fans who aren’t at the race track).
Media programs should enhance the live experience of enjoying local stock car racing, not water it down or worse, encourage people to stay home. These programs should be aimed always at bringing people to the track to enjoy the races.
As pointed out by Wesley_Motorsports, the use of the term ‘media’ is thrown around quite loosely… These are long, detailed posts, but they are detailed issues. I am genuinely happy to see a discussion on this and will try to help out with any questions. Media rights as held by the speedway have and do work for everyone - - but they must work within a framework of cooperation with media producers.
-John Houghton
Public Relations
Delaware Speedway
(519) 652-5068 Ext 201
My questions to that are,
How does an in car recording of the race, end to end even, and posted online, fall under the media license? This has become very common over the years.
An in-car camera wouldn’t (and isn’t) an issue, as it provides fans a different angle than what they see from the grandstand. In-car cameras are an excellent example of new-media adding to the experience. It’s not attempting to replace or replicate the spectator experience, rather provides fans the opportunity to see what things look like from behind the wheel. We actively advertise drivers youtube channels that have in-car cameras, and often link to them from our e-mail newsletter.
If a fan were to approach you to post a recording of the night’s races on their blog, YouTube act, regularly, and as professional as one can get with a camcorder what would you be asking from them under the terms of your media license agreement?
The truth of the matter is that they would not be permitted to film for that purpose. We do approach ‘professional-looking’ camera setups regularly to determine who the photographer is and what they plan to do with the footage. Recently the track benefited from doing so, as the person in question was taping for a local television station and was not aware of all their additional media access privileges (infield access, tower access etc). We made the contact and now have a relationship with that videographer.
Races at Delaware have ended up on youtube end to end before. We are not issuing any kind of takedown notice for these, but we do watch for the setup to prevent it.
Now, this is important: differentiate between filming races for coverage vs filming and posting them end-to-end. If a media organization was filming the races and then reporting and adding their own editorial content on the event, driver profiles, etc (read: Journalism) that’s a different deal altogether. Also draw the distinction between filming a race for personal or team use vs posting an entire race event unedited to youtube for the general public.
Again, you can see where there is flexibility within media licensing, and even who would and would not fall under a speedway media license. What is of importance is that the speedway does assert the rights to the events at the track, but does so in a fair and flexible way.
-John Houghton
Public Relations
Delaware Speedway
(519) 652-5068 Ext 201