One of the staples of football photography is two players scrambling to win the ball. But such images from Bulgaria’s top division, the A Group, could soon vanish from the media if Valentin Mihov gets his way in demanding royalty fees for online and print publication.

Mihov, whose company SV RSA holds the broadcast rights to A Group football matches, said that he sold the video and photography rights to Bulgarian matches to Arena Football, meaning that websites will have to pay a fee for their photographer access or go without pictures altogether.

Arena Football is a joint venture between Krassen Stalev’s Alternative Media Group – part of public relations and marketing group MAG Communications – and Ivo Koussev’s Livemedia, an online media group with a focus on delivering live content. It bought the online rights from SV RSA a month ago for an undisclosed sum, though to be about 500 000 leva.

SV RSA legal counsel Petar Stankov told Dnevnik that the company’s contract with the Bulgarian Football Union for “all the rights” to the Bulgarian championship covered picture rights, not just broadcasting.

“I paid six million leva for the [rights to the] Bulgarian championship. How else am I going to make that money? I have no other chance,” Mihov told Dnevnik.

Mihov wants online media to negotiate access with the current online rights holders, with an eventual agreement on the size of the fee that would allow online publications to use photographs from the matches.

But he did not stop there and wants a similar fee introduced for print media, with newspapers paying an annual fee for the right to publish photographs. Mihov’s suggested fee was up to 5000 leva a title, with a tentative starting date “after the national team’s matches”. Bulgaria plays its last Euro 2012 qualifying match and a friendly against Ukraine in mid-October.

There is no such publication practice or fees for online publication in major football leagues in this time, although a similar arrangement existed until recently in the English Premiership. However, recent negotiations between the Premier League and leading news agencies and major newspaper publishers led to an agreement that allows websites and blogs to publish images without payment to the league.

There is no such practice of “paid accreditation” in Formula One, or the football World Cup, the Olympics, tennis Grand Slams or any other major sporting events. Europe’s other major domestic leagues – the German Bundesliga, Spain’s Primera Division or Italian Serie A – do not employ such arrangements either.

But Mihov and Livemedia’s Koussev maintain that it is an international practice and the rights holders will from now on track coverage in online media to verify compliance.

“Newspapers are demanding money from me to publish the logo of [league title sponsor, insurance company] Victoria, and you’re telling me I should allow publication for free. These photographs bring newspapers and websites money from re-selling the images. Everyone is asking money from me and I am not going to stay put. There is no other way for me to collect that six million leva. The media will have to pay for the photographs and will have the right to archive the photographs, but not re-sell them,” Mihov said.

Asked by Dnevnik if the rights-holders planned to demand in the near future a fee for reporting on the football matches, Mihov said: “No. You can report and comment”.

Online and print media were given a one week period to negotiate a deal with the current rights holders, after which publication would be considered a breach of intellectual property.

“We will track very closely all other news and sports websites, about 60 of them. Our product is interesting for viewers and should even one picture appear, [the websites] will be held liable,” Livesport’s owner Koussev said.

The next step is to ban TV stations from using short highlight clips of football matches – until now, TV channels could broadcast up to 90 seconds from sporting events deemed to be “of public importance”, provided their coverage featured the logo of the broadcasting stations (this year, Bulgarian National Television and TV7 bought the broadcasting rights to A Group matches).

“We will be open to partnership with anyone, but content from our partners will no longer be allowed to be copied for free,” Koussev said.

The rights holders have already been assured by the media regulator, the Council on Electronic Media, that A Group football matches would not be included on the list of sporting events of public importance. “This way, all TV and radio stations will have to pay for every second of coverage, as is the practice in all of Europe,” Mihov said.

byGeorgi Filipov, Dnevnik