650 Freelance Photographers Boycott Wall Street Journal Over New Contract

Over 650 freelance photographers are withholding services from The Wall Street Journal in protest of a revised contractor agreement that they say strips intellectual property rights. The contract, introduced in November, includes a works-made-for-hire clause that transfers copyright ownership to the Journal and allows unrestricted sublicensing, including to AI companies. The Journal has increased its day rate but freelancers remain opposed. Daniella Zalcman, a documentary photographer and founder of Women Photograph, reported the protest in Columbia Journalism Review on July 8. The anonymous collective Your Visual Colleagues organized the boycott. Thomas Maddrey, CEO of the American Society of Media Photographers, criticized the contract as an imbalance of power, noting that the New York Times found a fairer path. The Journal defends the revisions as essential for archive integrity and offers joint copyright. Mickey Osterreicher of the National Press Photographers Association says the dispute raises fundamental questions about control of journalistic work.