Can someone of a legal background help us with the following:

Can event organizers stake a claim in the copyright of recorded material (whether it is sound, video, photographs etc.) taken during an event?

Hypothetical scenario:

a. Let's say the fictitious Daily Protozoa sends a writer and a photographer to cover a jazz festival. Can event organizers stipulate a claim in the copyright of your writer's and your photographer's work or does that belong to the Daily Protozoa, the photographer and/or the writer?

As far as I am know, the copyright or rights for distribution belongs to the Daily Protozoa with the Photographer and Writer getting credits for it....

b. Assuming video is taken and uploaded to popular video-sharing sites as fair-use but under the copyright of the Daily Protozoa. Are the event organizers able to state a claim in that copyright/rights of distribution/ownership as well?

The event organizers may have hired their professional video crew. Yet terrestrial free-to-air TV stations are able to broadcast some snippets as fair-use news reporting. The television video image broadcast rights/ownership belong to the TV station right?

c. What if audio recording has been done using state of the art portable stereo recorders, where the Daily Protozoa then converts it into individual .mp3 files for download OR as online streaming podcast? The organizers may have professional recording, but certainly the Daily Protozoa is able to provide as fair use as well as own / have the copyright etc. of the podcast.

Your kind assistance and free legal advice is much appreciated on the above. Kindly email to eugene [at] alldatjazz.com

(PS: Just want to give credit where its due. For a long time, I've been in two minds about whether I should post certain reviews or create podcasts because of these concerns. There are cases, where the organizers have stop-short of confiscating my gear but “required” that I turn over all recorded material to them as if they owned them and not me.)