The purpose of this guide is to help everyone in the weightlifting ecosystem to easily make sense of photo and media use, balancing the needs of governing bodies and their sponsors, athletes and their individual sponsors, news and editorial media, and the livelihoods of photographers and videographers.
Generally speaking, athletes can do almost anything they want with their own photos. Below are a few frequently asked questions that we receive regarding our photo use policy, USA Weightlifting's photo use policy, and athlete use. If you have a use case that doesn't fall into any of the below examples, absolutely feel free to contact us at support@lifting.life.
Yes, absolutely!
Yes, feel free to crop, edit, and change your photos.
As long as you have permission from the athlete in the photo, yes you can totally make as many prints as you want.
Yes! Competing at an event is quite an accomplishment, and sharing that with the world helps promote our sport in a positive way.
Yes, you can absolutely use your photo to promote a seminar and working that you host.
Our intention is not to promote our brand with the photos that we publish for preview on our website, but rather to help create a sustainable ecosystem for photographers, athletes, event organizers, sponsors, etc. Purchasing photos is incredibly important part of that ecosystem, which removes the "Photo Preview" watermark, and we very much appreciate your support. If you can't afford your photos, please contact us by email so we can help you out. We'd rather that you post your photos without our watermark so that you're promoting yourself, our sport, your sponsors, and our sport's sponsors rather than having our watermark front and center.
Yes, you may absolutely thank your sponsors in the message portion of your post.
Yes. Photos and videos from national USA Weightlifting events may be altered to add your name, the name of the event, and the logo of your team. Your team must be registered with USA Weightlifting.
Photos and videos from national USA Weightlifting events may not be altered to add the logos of any entity other than USA Weightlifting and/or your registered USA Weightlifting Team.
Yes. If your sponsor is also a USA Weightlifting sponsor, you may edit your photo to include your sponsor's logo. For a full list of USA Weightlifting sponsors, visit TeamUSA.org. To learn more about becoming an Official USA Weightlifting Sponsor, contact Kevin.Farley@usaweightlifting.org
According to IWF and USA Weightlifting rules, you can promote your sponsors by placing their logo on your singlet, belt, knee sleeves, socks, or shoes. Naturally, this means that their logo may appear in photos and videos of you at national USA Weightlifting events, and it will be clear to the viewer that the sponsor is sponsoring you individually as an athlete, and not the event or governing body. The specific rules may vary depending on the event and governing body, so please double check before registering for each event if you have personal sponsors that you work with.
Yes, but the media post must be editorial in nature. For instance, your sponsor can use the photo as part of a news post stating:
They may not: