Last Friday I was excited to shoot Motley Crue, Poison and the New York Dolls at the Tacoma Dome.  It was a moderately frustrating experience though as they kept us in a holding pen near security for the majority of the night.  We were allowed to shoot the first 2 songs (standard is 3) and were only allowed to stand in front of the sound board about 125 yards away from the stage, on the floor behind all the jumping and screaming fans with floor seating.  

I knew it was going to be soundboard shooting so I brought a Canon 400mm f/2.8L IS which if you have ever shot with you know is a heavy SOB!  Trying to lift that above the heads of thousands of fans...not easy.  

They had us sign a contract that essentially gives them the rights to use my pics for whatever reason they want.  That was totally cool with me, I would love it if Motley Crue used one of my pics for their web site or whatever.  Just for the cool factor you know?  

Then it said I agree not to license the materials (or shall not exploit any of the materials) without the written consent of Motley Crue.  

I wrote and asked if I could submit to Alamy and Shutterstock and heard back almost immediately...no friggin way!  That got me worried about what they meant by exploiting the materials so I wrote back to ask  about Facebook and my personal blog.  They said that was fine as long as I didn't sell the pics.

I shoot a lot of concerts, the only other band that made me sign a contract similar to this was X-Japan.  Theirs was even scarier.  I sure hope this isn't a trend that takes off with all the bigger bands.    

Mat