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p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- The International Olympic Committee bills itself as the “supreme authority of the Olympic Movement”.

Supreme authorty, eh? Wow! Heavy!

So it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Richard Giles after he posted pix on the Flickr of his trip to China for the 2008 Beijing Games.

It was the first time the “supreme authority” had decided was incumbent upon it to take a shot at a ’social media site’ —-

—- although blogging news is a definite No-No.

Rule 49 of the Olympic Charter states that, “Only those persons accredited as media may act as journalists, reporters or in any other media capacity.”

So now, according to the IOC, not only words, but also pix, are out – unless IOC censors decree otherwise.

Here’s Richard’s long, but fascinating, post on IOC efforts to shut him down »»»

On October 7, I received an email from the International Olympic Committee. The letter attached to the email was a little confusing, and in some ways concerning. It related to a collection of photographs that I was sharing on Flickr from my visit to Beijing for their Olympics in 2008.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what the IOC were requesting. In the legal letter they made several points: Firstly, that the terms and conditions of the tickets purchased for entry to an Olympic event stated that any images taken by me were only to be used for private use. (The actual statement is “7. Images, videos and sound recordings of the Games taken by you with a camera, video camera or audio equipment or any other kind of equipment may not be used for any purpose other than private, non-commercial purposes.) Secondly, that Olympic identifications such as the Olympic rings and the word “Olympic” can not be used without its prior written consent.

Given they made several points, I was completely confused and unsure if they were requesting that I remove the photos from Flickr completely, or if I just needed to change the license.

Regardless, the heavy handed nature of the letter made me want to share it online to see what others thought. As we all know, the wisdom of crowds goes a long way. I posted the letter on Flickr, and tweeted about it.

A lot of people expressed their support for me, as well as their concern about what appeared to be the IOC’s draconian rules. It caused quite a stir and within hours the Inquisitr had an article online about the C&D.

I also sent a note to the Electronic Frontiers Australia. Along with their sister organisation, the EFF in the U.S., they are well known for helping with on-line freedoms and rights. It didn’t take long and Nicolas Suzor (EFA Chair) responded with some thoughts suggesting that I comply with their demand and temporarily remove the CC licence from the images and find a solicitor to give you legal advice.

I’m a firm believer in not rushing things, unless of course it’s about life a death. So rather than be hasty and respond any further I chose to sleep on it. They required a response within about 48 hours, and I figured that it was unlikely that I’d be sued or locked up in jail if I took a little time.

Beijing Olympics: Usain Bolt Breaks The World Record (Men’s 100 Meters)

Originally uploaded by rich115

Overnight the story managed to get a life of its own. Thomas Hawk, a well known photographer and CEO of Zooomr, wrote a response on my Flickr photo and an article on his own blog: International Olympic Committee Tries to Shut Down Olympic Photos On Flickr. He also sent an email to several people at the IOC suggesting their request was unfair, and would only damage the IOC’s public image. Jordan from NowPublic also wrote an article, IOC Tries to Take Down Olympic Photos on Flickr, and Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing added his weight, Olympic Commitee claims that photographing exterior of venues violates copyrights.

Before long I also had the Toronto Star, Canada’s CTV, the UK Telegraph requesting I make some comments. I also had 5,652 view of my Flickr stream for the day. The story had gone slightly viral.

It was definitely time for me to clarify a few things with the IOC. So I sent them an email asking for clarification.

With reference to the below email and the attached letter.

Could you confirm that the IOC would like me to change the license of
my photographs on Flickr. Are you requesting that I change the license
of the photos taken from inside Olympic venues to Copyright, or is
there another Creative Commons license that would satisfy your
organisation? Or are you requesting something else?

Please let me know as soon as possible.

Kind regards
Richard

I also sent a note to Creative Commons Australia. A few people had suggested that I make contact with them, because it seemed that this was the crux of the issue. Almost all of my photos were licensed using a Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic, except for one photo of Usain Bolt that was licensed using Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. More on that later.

CC Australia had already heard of my issue, and Jessica Coates suggested I give them a call so that they might provide some support and suggestions. After a brief chat, Jessica thought I’d taken a logical approach to clarify their request, and said I was free to contact them again when I had more information.

It was now time for me to wait and see how the IOC responded.

Thursday evening rolled around, and I was enjoying a quiet night in front of the TV with my sweetheart @lu_lu, when I decided to check my email on my iPod before we crashed for the night. I was pleasantly surprised to see a very reasonable email in my inbox from the IOC.

Dear Richard,

Thank you for your email.

We hope you understand our goal is to promote and not to censure the Olympic spirit and to protect the rights of the athletes appearing in the photos.

Indeed, what the IOC is asking is that you change the license of the photos taken inside of the Olympic venues from “attribution – share alike” to “all rights reserved”. We are happy that you and thousands of people share your exciting experience of the Olympic Games on flickr and other social media but the IOC would like to avoid uncontrolled use of athletes’ image rights and of Olympic images and identifications.

You might be interested to know that one of your pictures was chosen from the Creative commons database and recently re-used in England for commercial purposes, in breach of your CC license as well as of the image rights of the athlete depicted.

We thank you for your understanding and complying with the above.

Should you have any further question, you can contact me by email or by phone.

The tone and manner of the email was much more down to earth, and explained in a bit more detail what the IOC hoped to achieve. It clarified that they did not have a problem with me sharing photos online, it just caused a lot of complication when the photos were being used in a commercial manner. They specifically pointed out that one of my photos was being used in England without my permission. Not only a breach of their contract, but also a breach of the license that I’d applied to the photos. I just wasn’t sure which image they meant.

Friday morning saw a few more emails from the press, and after dropping my daughter to a friends house I arrived at work to a message asking for me to call the Australian Olympic Committee.

Things seemed to have escalated a little, and the matter was becoming somewhat more urgent.

I gave them a call back, and left a message. A short while later a gentleman from the AOC called back and we had a very pleasant chat.

It turns out that my Usain Bolt photo was being used by a book shop in the UK to advertise the launch of the Guinness Book of Records 2010. This was being done without my knowledge, and as they pointed out, in breach of the license granted on the Olympic ticket.

Back in August of 2008, right after the Beijing Olympics, an author for Wikipedia had contacted me to ask if I might change the license of the Usain Bolt photo to Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic, so that it could be used in Wikimedia projects. This was a bit of a big deal to me, for more than the reason at the time, because I figured it was awesome to have one of my photos on Wikipedia. Now I really didn’t give much thought to a license that I really didn’t know existed on the Olympic tickets, but I was also more than happy to help a Wikipedia author, because after all, they weren’t going to make any money off the image either. It was all done with the greatest respect, and the aim of sharing information with anyone who needed to know more about Usain Bolt.

Back to the present day, it seemed that licensing my photo in a more liberal way had prompted a book store to use the photo to promote the launch of the book. This had then prompted the IOC to send me the cease and desist letter.

It all made a lot more sense now, and I was much clearer about what the IOC was requesting. They were very comfortable with me sharing my photos on Flickr, but they needed to ensure that my license of the photos did not allow commercial use. A much more respectable request that removing any of my photos from Flickr.

It still wasn’t clear from the last email from the IOC whether I could continue to use a Creative Commons license. Their last request was for me to apply a complete copyright license. However, I prefer using a CC license, and felt that for public benefit I should clarify further if the IOC were comfortable with a CC license that allowed sharing for non-commercial purposes. So I drafted another email and sent it to the IOC.

Hi

Thanks very much for your email, it clarifies the issue a lot.

I have also been contacted by the AOC and they have explained that
a bookstore in the UK is using my Usain Bolt photograph
without permission. I was not aware of this, and will contact them to
discontinue their use of the photo.

I am now fully aware that you’re happy for me to share my photos, but
that you require me to license them for non-commercial use. Would you
be ok if I changed all the licenses on these photos to another
Creative Commons license, rather than full copyright? This is the
license that I think might suit your request:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Thanks again for your email, it’s much appreciated.

Kind regards
Richard

As of writing, I’m waiting to hear back from the IOC about their license preference. However, given the non-commercial CC licenses provide the protection that they require, I’m hoping they’ll be happy with its use.

In the mean time, there seem to be two morals for this story. Firstly, make sure you check the license you’re agreeing to when you attend an event and plan to share content. This might seem like a no-brainer to many, but with the increase in amateur photography (etc.) and the ease with which we can all share our work, it’s time to be more diligent. Secondly, if you’re an organisation it’s a great idea to dispense with legal letters and have real conversations with your customers. Had the IOC sent me a brief email or tried to contact me via phone, rather than send a threatening C&D, all this could have been avoided.

It’s this last point that strikes me as being the most important. Gone are the days when organisations can tackle customers with an impersonal attitude. We’re all a lot more connected today, and all a lot more savvy about the choices that we have. I think we all expect to be treated as equals, with a lot of respect. We also know that there are millions of others that now expect the same, and we’re all willing to stick up for each other. As Clay Shirky says: Here Comes Everybody.

“Lets hope that for everyone’s benefit that the IOC are happy with a non-commercial CC license,” says Richard, dding:

“It’d be great to have such a large organisation accept that we should all be free to share our work using an alternative to outdated copyright.”

Stay tuned.

(Cheers, Richard)

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

cease-and-desist – Olympics bosses get nasty over Flickr pix, October 9, 2009
long, but fascinating -  The Olympics and Creative Commons Photographs, October 9, 2009

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