In a few weeks time I’ll be speaking at the Media140 event in Perth. I’m in the “Crisis management and maintaining brand reputation” session.
I have a few ideas on what I’d like to present about, but thought it’s always worth asking the universe.
If people are coming to the event (or even if you’re not), what would you like to hear me talk about? Please leave a comment, or reply to me on twitter: @richardgiles.
Today I heard back from the IOC regarding my request to continue to use a Creative Commons license on my Olympic photographs.
For the full saga, read part 1 of The Olympics and Creatives Commons Photographs.
On Friday, I sent a query asking the IOC if I could continue to use a Creative Commons license, though for non-commercial use. I figured that they were deep in discussions about the request because of the slow reply. Not that I minded, because it indicated that they were giving it due consideration. Great news for everyone I figured.
However, yesterday I received an email from the Media and Communications Director of the Australian Olympics Committee asking that I give him a call. He wasn’t happy. He happened to have just returned from Copenhagen, and he was across the issue. Apparently people had been contacting him from around the world to complain about the poor Aussie “battler” that the IOC were picking on.
In the phone call he suggested that I’d gone off, “half cocked,” and should not have shared the IOC’s letter on Flickr. He explained that the IOC were more than happy for me to share my photos on Flickr, and that the licensing was the only issue. He suggested that I’d incorrectly informed people that they had an issue with the sharing.
I explained that I had not informed people incorrectly, and was very careful about what I said. I had been confused as to the intent of the letter, so I left the interpretation open to others. We ended the conversation after I agreed to let everyone know that the IOC were happy for me to share my images.
After the chat, I sent a new email to the IOC to find out if any progress had been made with my inquiry.
I wanted to touch base with you again to see if there was any further
progress on your side with respect to my inquiry into the use of a
Creative Commons license that is non-commercial.I really appreciate your last email, and also some clarity from the AOC.
I’d love to resolve this and make what ever changes are required.
I’d also like to point out that I have no intent to make things
difficult for the IOC, and that although I note that some people have
contacted you regarding the issue, I think that your response to my
query about the letter you originally sent have been very respectful.Kind regards
Richard
I hoped that I’d hear back quickly, and I could put this saga behind me.
This morning I awoke to a new email from the IOC. In some ways, the response was promising. However, in other ways, it was not what I had hoped.
Hi Richard,
We carefully considered your previous email and I am happy to say that we are assessing the terms you proposed to use for licensing your pictures on your flickr account.
However, the IOC’s current policy is to restrict the use of pictures taken at the venues to private, domestic and non-commercial use and does not allow licensing of pictures to third parties, even for free non-commercial use, for the reasons I explained in my previous email.
Therefore, for the time being the IOC considers full copyright as the only suitable credit and asks that you change the license of the photos taken inside of the Olympic venues to “all rights reserved”.
Should this policy finally be amended, I will inform you in due time.
In the meantime, we thank you for your complying with the above.
What’s fantastic is they are considering the use of Creative Commons on Flickr. My hope is that in the not too distant future they’ll give the go ahead, and it will apply to any photos people take at Olympic events. What a great win that would be for everyone in general.
Unfortunately for me, I decided to change the license on my Olympic photographs to copyright for the time being. It’s disappointing, but I think it’s the fair thing to do. Although many people believe that the IOC would struggle to enforce a contract agreed at a venue in China, with an Australian citizen, for photographs hosted on a U.S. web service, I’m not the type of person to thumb my nose at corporations.
So tonight, I have changed the license on 238 photographs. Hopefully, temporarily to copyright.
In the end it seems that the IOC do not have an issue with me sharing my photos. That’s great news. Unfortunately, they needed to send a legal letter to get the ball rolling. As I said in my last blog post, they really should have just given me a call, or a gentle email asking for me to change my license. However, it could be great in the long run because this issue has prompted the IOC to investigate the use of Creative Commons. An organisation like the IOC endorsing CC would be a massive win for us all.
Let’s see what happens.
In the mean time, I’d love to thank everyone who gave me their support. In only a week, we prompted the IOC to consider how Creative Commons could be a great thing for the Olympic movement.
Updated October 14, 2009 : Part 2 of this blog post, and more information about the IOC’s request, can be found at The Olympics and Creative Commons Photographs Part 2.
A long blog post about attracting several thousand views on Flickr, interviews with the Toronto Star, Candian TV, and a chat with the Australian Olympic Committee.
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. 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.
Updated October 14, 2009 : Part 2 of this blog post, and more information about the IOC’s request, can be found at The Olympics and Creative Commons Photographs Part 2.
Every now and then I am asked to do a presentation about social media. Tomorrow I’ve got one of those invitations.
As I do these presentations I like to share my slides, not that they may mean much without me standing in front of them providing the detail. But I still think it’s important to share the work. Perhaps one day I’ll record the audio and share that on SlideShare as well.
Anyway, this one is particularly fun, because I found a bunch of quotes online that also sum up social media in some way. I literally created the slides with content shared online, including the images from Flickr and the quotes from Google searches.
If I follow you on twitter, because I found you or you found me first, I don’t need you to direct message me a link to your web site or spam me with details about your product or service! Here is a tip, I know all I need to know about you right now moron!
If someone follows me, I visit their Twitter profile to see who they are. My general rule these days is that if I know them, they are an Aussie, or are relevant to what I do, then I’ll follow them back. As long as the profile, or even their last few tweets, don’t seem to be spam then I’ll likely follow them. That’s a pretty slack set of rules I know, but I do like to continue to be involved in a wider Twitter community.
However, in the last few weeks it has becoming increasingly frustrating on Twitter, because this new form of spam is happening on a daily basis. I’ll follow someone, and get a DM in reply: “Thanks for following! You can also learn more about me at http://Iamanidiot.com and http://Iamlame.com.au.”
So for the idiots that have taken to this practice, here is the rub: it is SPAM! Besides, I’ve already checked your profile, and possibly already checked your site. I don’t need more information right now. How about at some point we have a nice chat, and I can get to know you. This is basic Internet etiquette these days, moron! Grab some common sense.
Let me repeat this one more time, just to keep me happy: it is basic etiquette not to spam me with crap you think is important to me! I’ve been on the Internet long enough to know I can Google for the things I’m interested in. I’m on Twitter to get to know PEOPLE, not your fucking day trader business, or SEO company, or how I can get fit.
For all those people using Twitter, feel free to point morons to this blog post when they DM you to tell you how much you’ll love their site or company. 
wall of spam
Originally uploaded by chotda
I stumbled across a blog post by Guy Kawasaki yesterday: Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter. Kawasaki is an old Apple employee that now invests in other companies, and starts a few web startups of his own. He is a self-promoter.
It’s possible that Kawasaki’s post is tongue in cheek, but having read a bunch of his stuff over the years, I’m guessing he is mostly serious. But I think his thoughts are incredibly flawed, and here is why: Twitter, and other social media, does not work if people are selfish.
Kawaski’s key point is: get as many followers as you can on Twitter, because they can serve you well.
That’s hellishly simplistic and wrong, and the only reason someone like Kawasaki can get away with it is because he has plenty of fanbois and girls. Otherwise people would would largely ignore most of the tactics he says he uses to get followers, because it’s exactly like spamming people.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the tips are great. Like creating a simple photo of your face for your avatar, establishing yourself as a subject expert (if that’s what you want to use Twitter for), and use the right tools.
However, the basis for the post and also tips like following “social media whores” (smores), sending @ messages to them, and following everyone that follows you are essentially stupid.
Personally I don’t follow “smores.” I find them useless. As he says, if you message them, they “probably won’t answer you.” This suggests they’re not that social after all, making them just whores, and without a two-way conversation I may as well talk to myself.
The reason why Twitter is so valuable to everyone is that it can be very relevant. And this is the key. Following everyone, and having a mass following does not make it relevant. Stressful, and a waste of time: yes.
People complain about email, because you have limited control over what email you receive when your email address is public. Twitter was hailed as its replacement, because there is much more control on who can send you messages. That theory falls apart when you follow everyone, and hope they all follow you.
Now “relevancy” is a personal matter. People might use Twitter to be social, while others use it for business. Each of us have a reason or two to use Twitter, and this determines who we should follow, and who should follow us back.
Here are the reasons I use Twitter:
I’m sure I get a few other benefits here and there, but essentially that’s what I use Twitter for.
So, given that’s my aims, I have a good sense of who to follow, and who should follow me. Now I’ve narrowed my list down to something a lot more manageable, and if anyone messages or DMs me, I can easily get back to them. Hopefully this adds value to those who I follow, as well as the value that I gain.
Following Kawaskai’s suggestion will turn Twitter in to a mass chat room. I can go back to IRC for that.
Speaking of which, I wonder when Darcy is gonna release Kookaburra.
Last Thursday I prepared a presentation for Webjam 9. The aim was to keep the anti-filter message flowing. I figured it was an awesome forum to continue to promote it.
I prepared it as a video, rather than slides, because I wanted the pace of the slides to change as the presentation unfolded. It also allowed me to add a few other video snippets, and do it hands free given the 3 minute time limit.
So it made sense to add my voice over for the presentation and to upload it to the Internets, for others to see and use.
For more information, check out AWIA’s Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet.
Last week was Web Week in Perth. AWIA gave it the nickname because it now hosts several events:
It turned out to be one fantastic week, enjoyed by a bunch of people from WA, inter-state, and international visitors.
I’m sure there are a range of reasons why people will love the week. Personally I loved it because it brought together a bunch of web folk, who met face-to-face, and had a great time discussing the current state and future of the world wide web.
My main take home came courtesy of Chris Messina’s keynote, Facebook without Facebook, at the Edge of the Web. I’ve been involved in a bunch of things in Perth, fighting the good fight and promoting not only openness, but the web industry in general (including Blogger’s Meetup, Blog Nite, BarCamp, Silicon Beach House co-working space, and now part of the AWIA committee). But, I feel like there is so much more to do.
It all takes time of course, and it’s not like I haven’t been active, but the week just re-inspired me to keep the energy going.
So thanks to everyone for being a part of a great week. It was amazing to see you all take part, and I am really looking forward to next years. However, I’m also looking forward to doing amazing things between now and then.
I mentioned the other day that the Australian Web Industry Association was working on their response to the Australian Government’s Internet filter.
Over several days a bunch of clever souls worked on a new web site for the web industry to show its support against the new filter. It includes a press release from AWIA, example letters, and some methods for how you can take action: Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet.
It also contains some nifty web site badges, like below, that allows everyone to show their support. So, at the very least go grab the code and show your support on your blog or site.
Being modest and all (yes I’m talking to you @pixel8ted), I’m usually shy about coming forward. But I’m pretty happy that SNOBS (Social Network For Opportunistic Businesswomen) profiled me today in their Work it Baby section.
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