How we take photographs
Most of the pictures and video on this site were taken at training sessions, competitions, and community events across Oaxaca. The people in them are athletes, families, coaches, volunteers, and neighbours.
We ask before we photograph, almost always in person and in conversation. That works, and it has gaps. A conversation does not always reach everyone who ends up in the frame. Someone standing behind the athlete we came to photograph may never have been asked. A volunteer who spent a Saturday taking pictures for us may not be credited. And a spoken yes leaves no record either of us can check later.
Three options
A credit
If you took a photograph or a video and we published it without your name, tell us how you want to be credited and we will add it.
An edit
We can blur a face, crop someone out of the background, or cut a section of video, and keep the rest.
Removal
We can take the photograph or the video down entirely.
Any of the three is a reasonable thing to ask for. We will not ask you to justify it, and asking will never affect an athlete’s place in any Oax Sport program.
You are allowed to change your mind
If you gave us permission before, you can still ask us to stop. People agree to a photograph on a good day at a competition and feel differently about it a year later. That is normal, and it does not need explaining.
Mexican data protection law gives you this right directly: you can withdraw consent at any time, and we have to make that simple and free. Because we usually ask in person, you can withdraw it the same way. A message or a conversation is enough. We will never ask you to fill in a form to undo something you agreed to verbally.
If it involves a child
A parent, a guardian, or the young person themselves can ask. We act either way, and we do not ask a young person to get anything signed before we act.
How we use photographs
It is fair to ask what a picture is actually for, so here is the full list. We do not sell photographs, and we do not license them to anyone else for advertising.
Telling the story
Blog posts, competition results, program pages, and reports on what happened. This is most of what we publish.
Fundraising
Donation pages, appeals, and reports to the people and institutions that fund the programs.
The running experiences we sell
Photographs used to show what a guided run is like. This is the only use where money changes hands for the thing being pictured.
If you hold rights to an image on this site
Some of the photographs here were bought, not donated. We buy from local photographers who cover competitions and events in Oaxaca, and we would rather pay them properly than lose them.
That is also where it goes wrong. A photograph bought in a conversation rarely comes with written terms, so the scope of what we paid for is not always clear to either side. An image bought for a social post can end up on a donation page. If that has happened with your work, we want to fix it quickly and without an argument. The same applies to agencies and stock libraries.
We take it down while we check
Tell us which image and we remove it from the site straight away, before we have finished verifying anything. You do not have to prove ownership first.
Then tell us what you want
A credit, payment for the wider use, or permanent removal. If we used your photograph beyond what we paid for, the normal answer is that we pay the difference.
Write to team@oaxsport.org with Rights in the subject line and it reaches the right person directly.
Get in touch
Write in Spanish or English, whichever you prefer.
It helps if you send the link to the page, or just describe the picture: where it was taken, roughly when, and who is in it. You do not need to know the date and you do not need to find the exact page. If you can only describe it, we will find it.
What happens next
- If you ask us to take something down, we take it down first and look into it afterwards. You should not have to wait while we check our records.
- We reply within two business days.
- If you asked for a credit or an edit, we tell you what changed once it is done.
- This covers everything on oaxsport.org and on the Oax Sport social media accounts. We cannot reach copies other people have already downloaded and published elsewhere, but we stop using the image ourselves.
The legal part, briefly
Oax Sport Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Austin, Texas. Oax Sport A.C. is registered in Oaxaca, Mexico.
A photograph of an identifiable person is personal data under Mexico’s Ley Federal de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de los Particulares, and the use of a person’s image is governed by the Ley Federal del Derecho de Autor. In the United States, use of a person’s likeness is governed by state right-of-publicity and privacy law. This page describes what we do in practice and does not replace or limit any right you already have under those laws.