From Sunday Telegraph:
‘Manchester United have been holding secret trials of state-of-the-art equipment that would enable them to take control of photography inside Old Trafford and cash in to the tune of £10 million on the global fame of players such as David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
As part of an experiment considered so sensitive that even senior Premier League officials have been kept in the dark, photographers have been employed by the club at two recent matches to send pictures of the live action direct to a dedicated website.
The site is currently closed but, once the technology has been fully tested, the club hope to sell images online for an annual or one-off fee. The move has raised fears that United's eventual aim is to be the sole provider of live action pictures at home games. Although the club deny they intend to target newspaper photographers, it is believed that photographic agencies, whose pictures are distributed worldwide to newspapers, magazines and websites as part of a multi-million pound business, could eventually be barred from the ground.
Industry experts believe that by excluding agencies and owning the copyright to photographs taken inside Old Trafford, the club could generate up to £10 million a year in revenue. Significantly, the three-year photographic licence that guarantees accredited photographers access to Premiership grounds is set to expire at the end of this season.
United have linked up with "digital asset management" company PICDAR, who have the technology to enable the rapid distribution of photographs via the web. It is understood that PICDAR have allocated web space to allow half a million Manchester United pictures to be delivered live or stored online.
Clients such as newspapers and magazines would be charged an annual subscription for accessing the live feed as well as the club's extensive picture archive, while the club also believe there will be further commercial spin-offs, with the opportunity to sell pictures to fans across the world via the web and mobile phones.’
At the start of this season, a bitter row erupted in Scotland when Celtic insisted that all photographs taken within Celtic Park should become the copyright of the club, enabling them to use and distribute the images as they saw fit.
Scottish newspapers retaliated by printing white spaces instead of photographs until the club eventually backed down. It was finally agreed that the Scottish champions would have the right to use any picture taken inside the ground, but only for internal, non-commercial purposes.
Although United's experiment is inspired by money, newspapers and agencies argue that the issue of press freedom is also at stake. The fear is that if a club like Manchester United can control photography inside Old Trafford, they can also dictate which pictures appear on the live feed. The suspicion is that such shots would be 'sanitised' and that controversial images, such as the infamous photograph of Roy Keane remonstrating furiously with referee Andy D'Urso two seasons ago, would never see the light of day.