No, it would make no sense to have a contract in another country with terms that are only valid in California. I have seen man recording contracts the 27 years I was head of music and responsible for music rights at NRK, and discussed them with our lawyers. To plead a case in the US as such, you have to hire an American lawyer, no Danish or Norwegian lawyer can appear in a US court. That’s why it can be really expensive, even if you win.

I agree this contract doesn’t sound as bad as most, but Garbage had no contract when I shot them in Oslo last year.

Nevertheless, I’m not planning on selling any merch….ever…, so this contract worked for me 🙂

Hey Per

Well, I asked Live Nation what that phrase meant, and they said it meant “contract terms valid in California”…

They might have informed me wrong though…

Hi Jacob. I am glad this is a Scandinavian thing, then it happens I a bigger market than just Norway, Denmark or Sweden alone.

The “California” thing means that if any court case happens from breaching the contract, its will be set in a Californian court and follow Californian law. That is a much worse case than having it in a Danish curt, since it will cost a lot of money even for a win.

Thanks so much Jakob for your insights! You guys are definitely doing things right! I wish for our community that more photogs think like this way.

Thanks for listening Marcin! The service Per mentioned is called “Pixsy”: https://pixsy.com/

That’s why a band like Guns ‘N Roses, when they played Copenhagen in June, didn’t pull out any contract to anyone. The months before the show, I saw numerous photos online from people sharing the GnR contracts and their crazy content, but since a band will simply not get any coverage here with a contract (and I know for a fact that Live Nation are telling the bands this), then they don’t bring any.

I shot GnR without contract, but from the first barrier (pretty much at 200-300mm the whole time). I can use my images how I like.

The only contract I’ve seen, was Garbage last year. It said that both Garbage and I would have the rights (retaining my ownership), but that I couldn’t use them for making merch.
Last line said “…This contract is effective in the state of California…” No mention that I had to send them any files. So its restrictions was basically limited to California.
I signed it, took a photo of it for my records, put the best images online in hi-res, never heard a thing about it.

This is exactly what the attitude should be in the industry. In our case, Live Nation helps a great deal by informing the bands about this, but also the fact that everyone in the industry just boycott the show. We’re smaller countries, but many photographers know each other on Facebook here, and it’s just considered bad attitude and an undermining activity if someone says they shot some show, which everyone knows had a bad contract.

Thanks for your comment. I was discussing this issue with Steve Brazill in Episode 4 too: http://www.howtobecomearockstarphotographer.com/podcast-steve-brazill/
Te challenge is to get everyone on board. However, the interesting thing is to that media coverage seems still important for those bands (even big ones), otherwise they wouldn’t drop the contracts. If, we as concert photographers decide not to sign any rights grabbing contracts at all, labels and management might change their strategy. But, I agree it´s a community effort.