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DETROIT, MI – SEPTEMBER 17: Barry Sanders statue outside of Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan on September 17, 2023. Credit: DeeCee Carter/MediaPunch/IPX (via AP)
A professional photographer who snapped an iconic image of Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders has sued the football team for copyright infringement, alleging the organization used the photo without consent when creating a statue memorializing the Hall of Famer.
In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, veteran photographer Allen Kee says the iconic sculpture of Sanders outside of Ford Field is based on a 1995 photo he took during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Seeking a permanent injunction that would stop the Detroit Lions and a host of other defendants from displaying, copying or promoting the work, Kee says at the time he took the picture, he was a freelance photographer.
That would mean he wasn’t under a contract to take pictures for any one entity and the photo solely belonged to him.
Kee did not specify the damages he seeks.
Though the photo was taken in 1995, the statue outside of Ford Field was unveiled just last year. According to the lawsuit, a week after it was unveiled, the Detroit Lions hailed the statue in a documentary about its making entitled “Sculpting Barry: The Making of Lions Legend Barry Sanders’ Statue.”
Roughly halfway through, sculptors are seen — and even heard — discussing Kee’s photograph as it looms huge in the background.
“We have a photo that’s considered the most iconic running photo ever taken of Barry Sanders [and] that’s what’s being re-created in this sculpture,” one sculptor can be heard saying in the documentary.
This permission was not something Kee granted, his lawyers contend. What he did, however, was submit the photo of Sanders to a now-defunct entity known as NFL Photos.
NFL Photos, while operational, issued licenses and distributed photographs from NFL games taken by freelancers. Kee says he never signed anything that turned the rights over to the NFL when he handed in the snap of Sanders.
His attorney argues that NFL Photos promised to give back original photos and artwork to freelancers when it shuttered, but Kee never received his work.
“Upon information and belief, the NFL moved any original slides submitted by freelance photographers that were not returned to their creators/owners to an Iron Mountain storage facility located in California that, at the time, was owned and maintained by the NFL,” the lawsuit states. “Upon information and belief, the original slide of plaintiff’s photograph was among the slides that the NFL moved to its Iron Mountain storage facility when NFL Photos ceased operations [in 2004.]”
Other defendants named in the Jan. 10 copyright claim are Getty Images, NFL Properties LLC, NFL Enterprises LLC; Fanatics Retail Group North LLC; Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc.; Bullion International Inc. dba The Highland Mint; Timeless Creations Inc.; McFarlane Toys Inc.; Kevin Gordon dba VC Collectibles and a number of unnamed defendants listed as John Does.
Local outlet MLive.com reported that just this month when the Lions played the Minnesota Vikings, replicas of the controversial statue were handed out to tens of thousands of fans as a free giveaway.
Notably, in a report about the lawsuit in the Washington Post, legal analysts noted that Kee’s battle may hinge on one critically important question: Was the statue based on the photo or was the statue based on a pose Sanders adopted famously when on the field?
