International Olympic Committee tries to prohibit Olympic photos on Flickr, then backs off

Months after Richard Giles, a Social Media Specialist at the CPSU/CSA in Perth, Australia, posted his stunning collection of photographs of the Bejing Olympic Games on his Flickr account, he received a "cease and desist" letter from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) , claiming  trademark infringement.  Giles describes himself as a guy who respects the system, but given the potentially far-ranging impact of the issue, he took a night to sleep on it taking the images off the site.

"I’m a firm believer in not rushing things" Giles said in his blog.  "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.

Then Giles posted his blog, seeking the "wisdom of the crowd."

"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," Giles wrote.

"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."

Last night, the Vancouver Observer contacted Giles to ask him how this will affect Flickr, copyright laws,  the creative commons---and those who photograph the Vancouver 2010 Games.

Finally, he wrote IOC:

"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"

IOC responded, more nicely, this time:

"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."

 

And Richard wrote back:

"Hi,

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