Cricket Australia Simultaneously Encouraging and Banning Taking Photos

by Neerav Bhatt on January 25, 2012 · 0 comments in Topic: Business / Work,Camera, TV and Portable Video Reviews

I’ve always been a cricket fan. Last week I attended a T20 Big Bash league match at the Sydney Cricket Ground and found that the Cricket Australia terms and conditions of spectator entry regarding photography inside the venue were seemingly arbitrarily enforced.

When entering private land you consent to rules that land owners impose on you including re: photography. Unfortunately rights to take photos in public areas are becoming equally restricted and often mistakenly overpoliced by security guards (see http://photorights.4020.net)

photography rights

This prompted me to write an article about the matter for Technology Specator:

If you take a photo at an Australian cricket match this summer and publish it to Twitter or Facebook you could be slapped with a ban from Cricket Australia thanks to draconian rules in place to protect media broadcast partners.

Amatuer photographers theoretically risk being “prohibited and disqualified from purchasing tickets for or entering into” any Cricket Australia match or event ever again, but cricket venue entry rules regarding photography are honoured more in the breach than in the observance.
- read more at http://technologyspectator.com.au/emerging-tech/social-media/cricket-australias-poor-twitter-form

That evening I got invited to discuss the issue on ABC Radio NSW and ACT Evenings. Click on the link below to listen to the 10 minute discussion about the democratisation of photography and how corporate rules and the law are lagging behind the reality of cheap omni-present digital cameras.

Listen to my 20/01/2012 discussion on ABC Radio NSW and ACT Evenings with Dominic Knight re Cricket Australia photography rules. MP3 recording courtesy of ABC Radio.

Several days later Cricket Australia’s CEO commented on the issue so I wrote a followup story highlighting that:

In the meantime, the official Cricket Australia Twitter account and least two Big Bash T20 teams are openly encouraging fans to take match photos and share them online, muddying the legal waters around Cricket Australia’s terms of venue entry for spectators.
read more at http://technologyspectator.com.au/emerging-tech/social-media/cricket-australias-twitter-reality-check

Hopefully by the time the 2012-2013 Cricket season starts Cricket Australia will officially allow photos to be taken at venues for non-commercial personal uses such as publishing to personal blogs or social media accounts like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.

Otherwise fans will not be able to capture photo memories of the atmosphere and famous players at matches as I did during the 2005 Super Test series (Flintoff, Mcgrath and Lara pictured below).

flintoff mcgrath lara

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