Ill Communication

On The Baltimore Sun's Photo Edge blog, Christopher T. Assaf writes about covering this weekend's Virgin Festival. "The security folk seemed to be of mind the photographers were more of the problem than the crowd, taking issue with almost everything we did or tried to do near the stage," he writes.

He continues:

"Rights-grabbing releases by Cheap Trick and Beastie Boys did not help smooth the mood. Whenever the terms 'In perpetuity' and 'throughout the universe' are combined in legalese the time to reconsider careers seems eminent. The Sun and Tribune Co., will not sign such 'agreements' but we were allowed to photograph them. Thank goodness we stood our ground."

I've heard this comes up a lot in concert photography. Obviously, a newspaper staffer can't agree to terms that forfeit rights to photographs. How does everyone else handle these situations?