Banning Pro Photographers from Basketball Game; Citizen Photographers Next?

New Orleans Times-Picayune: News photographers denied access to LHSAA’s girls state tournament. Several newspapers, including The Times-Picayune, were denied access to photograph the state girls high school basketball championships Monday night when they refused to sign a document limiting the right of newspapers to resell their photos to the public.

If I was the editor of one of these newspapers, I’d put a large house advertisement in today’s paper and on the website. It would invite people attending the game to shoot their own pictures, and send them into the paper, which would resell them on a revenue-sharing basis with the photographers.

I’d also encourage parents to shoot pictures and make them available on photo sharing sites such as Flickr. (I couldn’t find any such pictures today from last night’s game.)

Or are the officials of Louisiana High School Athletic Association planning to force all attendees to sign statements that they won’t sell pictures they take? Or ban cameras they don’t control (not that they could do this successfully in any event)?

The athletic association is living in another century. Then again, so are the newspapers.

See also this similar case in Wisconsin.