Dabora. Inc. will no longer be accepting photographs by Doug Shiflet or Sandra Hall for publication in Walking Horse Report without a copyright release to the owner of the horse or to the horse show. This is not a decision we have made lightly and we regret any inconvenience it causes our customers.

Shiflet and Hall recently sent new contracts to Dabora, Inc. to be effective March 1, 2004. Sandra Hall has since extended this deadline to March 15 and Doug Shiflet has extended his deadline to April 1, 2004.

These new contracts, which are essentially identical, contain several provisions which we consider unfair to our customers including prohibiting the use of a photograph in a publication without a $10 copyright fee to the owner each time that photograph is used. This $10 per use fee would be in addition to the cost of the photograph.

In 1997, Shiflet and Hall sent Dabora contracts that allowed the customer to use their photographs without owners paying copyright fees. However there were certain other fees and stipulations including Internet usage fees and requests to require customers to buy multiple photographs when advertising in multiple publications. Subsequent contracts have increased these fees and/or added other stipulations. These latest contracts caused us to make the decision to no longer accept photographs from Doug Shiflet or Sandra Hall without a copyright release to the owner/advertiser or to the horse show.

This decision will take effect March 15, 2004, for Sandra Hall photographs and April 1, 2004, for Doug Shiflet photographs.

After these dates, customers must obtain copyright releases from Shiflet or Hall to use their photographs. A full copyright release would allow the customer to use that photograph in any way they chose without additional fees being due to the photographer.

As an alternative, horse shows can require photographers to sign a contract giving the horse show ownership of the copyrights of the photographs. Photographers are considered work for hire, and this contract would prevent photographers from limiting the use of the photographs now or in the future.

Currently the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration has such an agreement in place, such that they own the copyright to all photographs taken at the Celebration by their photographer. Jack Greene is the official photographer at the Celebration and he does not require customers to pay copyright fees to use his photographs in our publication from any of his horse shows.

We are in discussion with a number of photographers and hope to be able to clarify copyright ownership and usage charges by the photographers to our mutual customers in the near future.