Arkansas press group latest to challenge limits on sales of high-school sports photos

High school sports are an essential part of any community newspaper, and some papers are using the Web to create a new source of revenue -- photographs that they can't fit into the printed product. But that has run afoul of some state high school athletic associations and their private photo contractors.

The Arkansas Activities Association, which governs high school sports in the state, has enacted a policy to limit secondary use of photo and video images captured at its post-season events, reports Arkansas Publisher Weekly. As in previous cases, this has sparked a sharp conflict between two influential associations -- the AAA and the Arkansas Press Association, publisher of the Weekly. APA has begun legal action against the AAA over the policy, which requires media outlets to pay a fee if they want to get credentials for events and sell photo images online.

In a column in the Weekly, APA Executive Director Tom Larimer says AAA wants "control over the professional photographers who get a credential solely to take photos for re-sale on the Internet" and get a piece of that profit, but the cure is worse than the disease. "Even if everyone who takes a photo at a post-season event sanctioned by the AAA pays the fee the revenue raised will be totally insignificant to the loss of good will with media outlets around the state, including newspapers," he writes. The football playoffs begin this weekend in Arkansas, so the policy goes into effect this Friday. To download copy of Arkansas Publisher Weekly, go here.

In similar dust-ups in Iowa and Louisiana earlier this year, the school officials backed down after newspapers argued that most of the schools involved are public, and all the events are -- and that such limits are unconstitutional prior restraint on publication. (For a Rural Blog item on that, click here.) But the Illinois Press Association, the largest state press group, has filed suit against the prep sports governing body in that state about a similar policy, saying it amounts to prior restraint.