The story so far.

Microsoft’s “iconic Britain” website is launched as a competition to encourage surfers to use Live search. It is sponsored by Nikon with judges, Simon Coleman (Nikon Imaging), Mike Selby (Rex Features), Joanna Lumley (Actress and Author) and Brian Blessed (Actor). The website is developed for Microsoft by Thin Martian.

The competition prompts entrants to use Live Search to find images on the net that they view as iconic of Britain and drag and drop them into an entry box with the carrot of the possibility of winning a Nikon camera.

“It’s a search engine, so what’s the big deal?”, I hear you ask. Well, under the Perfect 10 Vs Google ruling, search engines’ use of thumbnail images are considered fair use if they fulfill certain criteria, such as linking back to the original page from where the image was taken. The problems with the special search engine for the competition were that there were no link backs, no attribution, no metadata and the images were being served from the Microsoft Live Search servers. All of that removes the fair use defence from Microsoft’s idotic competition search engine. Everything changes at that point and it becomes the unlawful use of copyrighted material for the purposes of commercial exploitation ergo the reasons why thousands of photographers react angrily to a perceived infringement of their intellectual property and copyright.

Nikon receives many complaints and withdraws its sponsorship of the site, reducing its presence on the site to a reference to the prizes being Nikons. [EDIT] I have just noticed that even that minimalist reference to Nikon has been removed and the site says you can win a digital camera, no mention of Nikon anywhere on the site.

Simon Coleman (Nikon Imaging) withdraws as a judge.

Nikon releases a statement to Pro-Imaging -

Nikon would like to confirm that it has withdrawn its support from Microsoft’s Iconic Britain competition. This is due to the feedback and concerns raised by photographers and entrants surrounding the competition mechanic that was developed and promoted by Microsoft.

Nikon will fulfil its prize commitment to the winners, however it will not be associated with the competition going forward

We appreciate your feedback, understanding and continued support.

Simon Coleman (Nikon Imaging) also sends a form email to all who directly contacted him or Nikon concerning the competition and Nikon’s role in it -

Dear xxxx,

Thank you for your email.

Nikon acknowledges your concerns with regards to the ‘Iconic Britain’ competition. We would like to assure you that we are in direct discussion with Microsoft (as the responsible promoter) to address the reported issues, and will request that Microsoft formally respond to you with more detail on the outcome of these discussions ASAP.

Whilst we recognise that Nikon UK Ltd is associated with Iconic Britain by providing prizes and a nominated judge via a third party agency, we would like you to understand that we are not the promoter and have at no time been involved in the development of the terms and conditions or the running of Iconic Britain. Therefore, we would recommend that in the first instance communication should be directed to msncompetitions@thin-martian.com.

Nikon takes copyright very seriously, and endeavours to ensure that photographers’ rights are protected at all times. To that end we are continuing to put weight behind your comments to ensure that solutions are in place post the competition closing on the 31.07.08

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Yours faithfully,

Simon Coleman

Hundreds, if not thousands, of photographers mail in their complaints to Microsoft and photography fora are alight with angry words.

Microsoft releases a statement to Pro-Imaging -

At Microsoft we take the issue of copyright extremely seriously and provide comprehensive information to users of our products and services to ensure that they respect copyright. Full details and guidance on copyright issues can be found on www.iconicbritain.co.uk by clicking on the ‘Respect Copyright’ tab.

All images that feature on www.iconicbritain.co.uk are images from the internet that are already in the public domain. When an individual wishes to submit an image into Iconic Britain’s ‘Search for the 100 Images that define Britain’, it is the subject matter (for example, red telephone box or cup of tea) that they are searching for, not a specific image. The site then repeats the individual’s search and displays a dynamic, visual set of search results from images that are already available on the internet and not one specific image. At no point, does www.iconicbritain.co.uk copy, host, or download any image.

The images that will make up the final Iconic Britain 100 will be the most voted for subject matter in each category. We will be obtaining copyright licences for a representative image of each of the 100 most popular subject matters, from the relevant rights-owners and also for every image that is used in publicising the Iconic Britain search.

If we find out that an image appearing on www.iconicbritain.co.uk is inappropriate, we will remove it. If anyone believes that an image is inappropriate, let us know by filling in the information requested on the ‘Report Image’ button and we will remove the image from the Iconic Britain search.

The assertion that

All images that feature on www.iconicbritain.co.uk are images from the internet that are already in the public domain

infuriates photographers further. As everyone knows, mostly from Microsoft’s aggressive defence of its own Intellectual Property, on the net does NOT mean public domain.

Microsoft responds to direct complaints with a form mail response -

Dear xxxx,

Thank you for your follow up correspondence in relation to this matter.

At Microsoft we take copyright very seriously and endeavour to provide all users of our products with guidance on respecting copyright. However you have informed us that you object to certain of your images being submitted by users and displayed through the competition mechanism and that you do not wish these images to be included in the competition. Please be reassured that we will take steps to ensure that each image you have reported to us will not be used again within the competition.

The initial stage of the Iconic Britain competition, in which users submit entries, closes at 1pm on Thursday 31st July, after which we will be compiling all submissions ready for voting prior to the Final 100 reveal on Thursday 14th August. Naturally, we will exclude those images you have notified to us from this voting. Microsoft will obtain the consent of the copyright owner in relation to all images that will be featured on www.iconicbritain.co.uk during the Voting and Reveal stages of the competition.

Sincerely,

J.K. Weston

Legal and Corporate Affairs

Microsoft Corporation USA

Most photographers are not happy with this form response and respond accordingly by email.

Microsoft responds again, with another form response -

Dear xxxx,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft regarding http://www.iconicbritain.co.uk and for your follow up comments.

Over the past few days, we have heard from numerous photographers and/or copyright owners. We very much appreciate hearing about your concerns and the opportunity to respond to each of you directly.

The site and associated contest was intended to provide an opportunity, via common search practices, to showcase your work and to have users praise your work by voting it into the contest. In no way was it ever our intention to misappropriate your work, misrepresent its source, or to inappropriately trade on it in any way. Microsoft is a significant holder of intellectual property and we do understand the importance of intellectual property and the need to respect its integrity, whether ours or yours. We take that very seriously and we are genuinely sorry the search feature on the “iconic” site did not live up to our high standards. It was a mistake and we accept full responsibility. We never intended to disrespect you, your works and your rights. Please be assured that your works were never distributed or otherwise used commercially, and all of the images resulting from random searches have been removed from the site and are no longer available for display.

As you know, the voting phase of the contest has been closed . The final phase of the contest, which ends August 14, 2008, will contain only fully licensed images for our users to vote on. If you are interested in participating in this phase, we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in such discussions. Time is of the essence in this regard, so please let us know as soon as possible.

Again, we truly regret the outcome caused by the initial phase of this contest. We hope you will accept our sincere apology and allow us an opportunity to regain your trust.

Sincerely,

J.K. Weston

Legal and Corporate Affairs

Microsoft Corporation, USA

Mike Selby, (Rex Features) responds to a query about his involvement in the competition -

Dear xxxx,

I have read your comments about the Iconic Britain project, and similar observations from a number of other photographers or organisations.

I’m sure that you will appreciate that anyone who would grab an image, remove the IPTC info, and post it on a website (any website) doesn’t need the excuse of the Iconic Britain competition to do so. Indeed, that sort of pilferage occurs countless times every day. Rex pics, and those from every other agency, appear with no attribution on a vast array of sites across the virtual world, and there’s not much anyone can do about it, although where it is apparent that the illegally obtained images are being used commercially we would normally try to take action to close such an operation down. I’m not saying, of course, that we wish to
encourage that sort of behaviour through our involvement in Iconic Britain — far from it.

In fact, the way that this (admittedly rather confusing) competition works, the submitted pictures will not actually be used for anything other than deciding what type of subject the majority of people think is an iconic symbol of Britain. As you will see, they are no longer
displayed on the Iconic Britain website. The pictures used in the final judging will actually be copyright images which illustrate those “iconic” subjects, properly supplied for the purpose by Rex Features and paid for at an appropriate rate by the competition organisers (and
therefore the photographers will also get their cut).

I hope that this goes some way to addressing the issues you raised.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Selby
Editorial Director
Rex Features Ltd
18 Vine Hill
London
EC1R 5DZ
UK

www.rexfeatures.com

This admission astounds photographers as now it appears that the whole image selection process of the competition was a sham.

Microsoft issues another statement to Pro-Imaging -

We are grateful to Pro-Imaging for raising its concerns about the use of photographers’ works on the Iconic Britain website. Although this was only a short marketing programme, it’s always very important to Microsoft that we respect the intellectual property rights of others. We apologise that we have not lived up to our ordinarily high standards.

We have since taken steps to obtain the rights to use every image to be featured in the subsequent stages of the Iconic Britain competition. We also welcome the invitation by Pro-Imaging to discuss with them best practices when using photographs in similar competitions.

Microsoft Corporation

So that’s where we are at the moment. Many photographers have submitted invoices to Microsoft for the usage of the images. Whether they will receive any payment remains to be seen. Whether they will take on the might of the Microsoft legal department in a law suit if they are not paid also remains to be seen.

What is really interesting about this, in my opinion, is Microsoft’s assertion that all the images were on the internet and in the public domain. Certainly, my images that were misappropriated were not in the public domain, mine are all rights reserved and were harvested from flickr, as were the images of many, many aggrieved photographers.

How can Microsoft make the assertion that images on the net are in the public domain and in their ‘Respect Copyright’ article on the ‘iconic Britain’ website also state -

1. Just because a work does not include a copyright notice (e.g., © 2006 Microsoft Corporation) does not mean the work is in the public domain. Copyright notices are generally not required for works to be protected by copyright.

2. Just because a work is easily available on the internet or elsewhere does not mean you may use the work freely. Look for terms of use, such as Creative Commons, that explain how works you find on the Internet may be used.

Apparently, someone doesn’t know their arse from their elbow when it comes to copyright and that is the nub of the story.

This has to be the most blatantly irresponsible, incompetent and badly thought out promotional competition ever conceived.

As of the moment of writing, Thin Martian have not responded directly to complaints sent to them but have responded by getting Microsoft to send the form response to anyone who complained to them.

There are now no judges listed on the ‘iconic Britain’ website. Neither Joanna Lumley, Brian Blessed nor their agents have responded to mails about the competition or their involvement in it.

The competition is now closed to submissions and will reopen shortly with the next phase. I look forward to see how it pans out.

Follow the controversy in the Photographers’ Rights Group on flickr.

You know, I’ve come across many things on flickr that strike me as odd… strange images, strange people and strange groups but what exactly could you possibly get from passing off another flickrite’s work as your own. I mean, the comments and kudos you receive are for someone else’s work, what kind of a sad, lonely individual needs attention so badly that he or she would stoop so low and actually get something out of it.

I cite this example, the link will take you to a discussion in a particular group about just such an activity and another one here and yet another one here.

What bothers me greatly about this is the tacit support of the group admin for these activities. I mean, why? Why condone such stupid, pointless, idiotic, immature behaviour?

I’m not too bothered about the rights discussion here as that has already been thrashed out many times with the consensus being”If you don’t want it ripped off, don’t post it”. I’m actually more interested in the thinking of the perpetrator, the reasons behind it, a more psychological analysis of the activity rather than just the morality of it.

If the ‘collector’ attributed the images as a fan collecting favourite images and then made it clear that it was not his or her work then that’s one thing, but the passing off is what gets me, I really don’t understand it and would love to know more about the individual who does it.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd behaviour?

I wondered when this would happen.

According to photoinsider.net, it has been leaked to certain sections of the media that Canon and Nikon are on the verge of announcing to the SEC that they are going to merge their DSLR camera and DSLR photographic lens divisions. The leaked report also stated that the move would create a more viable enterprise more able to compete with the ever increasing market share poaching behemoths like Sony, Pentax and Olympus.

The leaked report also caused some speculation about the name of the new merged operation with some industry specialists suggesting that it would be ‘Cankon’, which should be acceptable to the majority of loyal supporters of each brand, although some suggest that it should be ‘Nikon’ as it used the ‘Nik’ from Nikon and the ‘On’ from Canon. Obviously those who suggested that were board members of Nikon US.

The future of Digital SLR photography is safe now in the hands of the two greatest names in the field. Sony’s advance will be halted on the beaches. They shall not pass, there will be no surrender. Lirpa Loof - VP Marketing, photoinsider.net

Once the proposed merger is announced, the plan will doubtless have to go before regulatory authorities for approval. What this means for end users is less obvious, could it mean that the combined group drops different models from each range (that is inevitable) or more likely, use Canon to develop the bodies and Nikon to develop the glass. Who knows, watch this space.

Read the leaked report here.

The Awakening of Billy Bibbit, originally uploaded by Stephen Macken.

Part of Rail Theatre Company’s publicity shots commission.

Nurse Ratched: Aren’t you ashamed?
Billy: No, I’m not.
[Applause from friends]
Nurse Ratched: You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother is going to
take this.
Billy: Um, um, well, y-y-y-you d-d-d-don’t have to t-t-t-tell her, Miss Ratched.
Nurse Ratched: I don’t have to tell her? Your mother and I are old friends. You
know that.
Billy: P-p-p-please d-d-don’t tell my m-m-m-mother.

Probably the pivotal scene in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is the suicide of Billy Bibbit.

McMurphy’s prostitute friend, Candy, takes Billy into a room, with much encouragement from the other patients and McMurphy, to awaken the man hidden inside the boy.

Dominated by his mother and by Nurse Ratched, Billy is a victim of his own lack of assertiveness and is an allegory for the emasculation of the male by powerful women.

Billy comes to a tragic end when his rebellion against the female authority in his life falls apart when Nurse Ratched threatens to tell his mother. Billy, a thirty-one year old boy, kills himself in a horrific fashion rather than face down his mother.

This event triggers a violent response from McMurphy who blames Nurse Ratched’s lack of human compassion for Billy’s death, leading to his lobotomy.

Capture an image of ‘The Life of the Gael’ and win up to £2000.The competition is for either colour or monochrome photographs depicting any aspect of life in the Scottish Gaidhealtachd or Irish Gaeltacht encapsulating the richness of the culture, heritage and community of these areas.

PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION RULES

The competition is for either colour or monochrome photographs depicting any aspect of life in the Scottish Gaidhealtachd or Irish Gaeltacht encapsulating the richness of the culture, heritage and community of these areas.

The competition is open to all amateur photographers. You do not need to be a resident of the Gaidhealtachd/Gaeltacht nor be a Gàidhlig/Gaeilge speaker to enter. However, each photo must be accompanied by a caption in either Gàidhlig or Gaeilge.

All entries must be in a digital format. To ensure sufficient resolution for exhibition display purposes photographs must be a minimum resolution of 2400 x 3000 pixels taken by a 5MP camera or higher.

Each photograph must be accompanied by a brief title or caption in Gàidhlig/Gaeilge.

Each entrant must fill in an online registration form on the Colmcille website. There is no limit to the number of images submitted per applicant but an entry form MUST be completed for each entrant.
Any participants without an entry form will be automatically disqualified.

It is the entrant’s responsibility to ensure that all the necessary permissions are obtained from people featured in a photograph. All photographs must be entirely the owner’s work.

Photographs must be submitted by Monday 1st September 2008.

Colmcille cannot accept responsibility for loss or delay to entries.

The winning entries will be chosen by judges appointed by Colmcille.

The judges’ decision is final. Winners will be notified by post, telephone or email and the prizes will be awarded at an all-expenses-paid trip to the prize-giving ceremony.

Details of the winners will be widely publicised.

Colmcille retains the right to use winning images for the future promotion of the organisation and shortlisted images for display in connection with the competition.

Colmcille will use selected images for promoting the event. Colmcille may publish a calendar and other merchandise in connection with this competition. Some of these items of merchandise may be reprinted. No fees will be payable for this or any future reprints of this merchandise but all photographers will retain full copyright of their images and will be credited for their work. This may be done in Gàidhlig, Gaeilge or English. This may include display on the Colmcille website, in a public exhibitions or other means.

Employees or Board Members of Colmcille or any members of their families are ineligible to enter.

Prize-winners may be required to supply a short description/explanation of their image and where/when it was taken for exhibition purposes.

Categories

There will be five prize-winners:

ADULT
First prize £2000
Second prize £750
Third prize £500

JUNIOR (under 16 on 01/09/08)
First prize £500
Second prize £250

Each prize-winner will also receive a framed copy of the Tìr Cholm Chille map.

To enter visit www.colmcille.net/photo-competition.html

Shots Magazine turns 100 (issues that is) with its next edition and to celebrate they are inviting subscribers, contributors and new subscribers and contributors to submit open themed images and testimonials for publication in this special edition.

If you are not familiar with Shots then it’s worth finding out more about the magazine.

The magazine has been published for over twenty years now and has a dedicated supporter base of enthusiastic professional and serious amateur subscribers and contributors. Diversity is the watch word of Shots as it always looks for images that are creative and personal. All levels of photographers both read and contribute to the mag and in my humble opinion, it’s one of the best independent photography publications out there.

Shots 99, themed Portraits, is available now.

Recommended

This may be of interest to those of you who are into nature and development/architecture photography. The winner of the first Real Photography Award has just been announced. The competition, an initiative of ING Real Estate, rewards photographers for excellence in those particular genres and the first prize of €50,000 has been given to Christian Schink from Germany. Schink won for a series of monochrome images that explored the Earth’s movement.

Other nominees included -

• Thomas Weinberger (Germany)
• Julian Faulhaber (Germany)
• Abelardo Morell (Cuba)
• Danwen Xing (China)
• Livia Corona Velazquez (Mexico)

A shortlist of 30 was whittled down from more than 650 entries with the 6 nominees then drawn from those. The judging panel consisted of some of photography and architecture’s leading lights and the success of this inaugural competition bodes well for its future. Competitions like this, aside from the bursary, create interest in the photographer’s work and can open many doors for those making the shortlist along with the obvious exposure the winner will receive.

Sorry for no post in the last few days but I was on a trip to London and speaking of which, cue the segue, the Photographer’s Gallery is well worth a visit.

At the moment, the gallery is featuring the work of the shortlisted photographic artists in the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2008, including the winner, Esko Männikkö;

• John Davies (UK)
• Jacob Holdt (Denmark)
• Esko Männikkö (Finland) The Winner
• Fazal Sheikh (USA)

The interesting thing I noticed about the finalists and their work was, not so much their differences, but rather their commonalities. Thematically, the judges were obviously keen on social commentary as three of the four finalist’s work is of that genre but what of the winner, there is little social commentary in the work of Esko Männikkö, as he says himself, he is a -

“photographer of fish, dogs, and old men.”

A humble resumé by the winner of this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2008. Perhaps it is this very lack of a clear moral viewpoint that made the judges finally decide to award the prize to Esko, who knows? For me, all the finalist’s works were beautiful and some were quite moving, Fazal Sheikh’s work definitely the latter.

Esko’s work has to be viewed hung on the gallery wall to be fully appreciated as presentation is part of his appeal. The signature rustic frames and positioning playing a vital role in the appreciation of the work. The exhibition runs until the 6th of April.

Recommended

Well, I suppose I couldn’t let March 17th pass without a Paddy’s Day post to flickrholic. You are invited to the Virtual Irish Pub St. Paddy’s Day Piss Up any time on the 17th of March, and that’s the 17th of March in whatever time zone you happen to be in, so I think it’s going to be one very long piss up.

Here’s a gratuitous photo of a famous Paddy enjoying the national pastime. Happy Paddy’s day, Shane.

Photo credit - Photographer Unknown. Copyright - Unknown. Source - www.oneloudernyc.com

and another thing, how the hell are you supposed to find photo credit info on the net..? Note to self… future blog entry.