Microsoft is running a contest called "Iconic Britain." According to the company's own
blog, "Iconic Britain is Microsoft's eight week-long search to find the ultimate images of ‘Iconic Britain’. Help create the chart of great sights, institutions, people and art that we will compile into the definitive top 100."
Sounds harmless, right? Then what went so wrong that Nikon hastily pulled its sponsorship from the competition midstream?
"Iconic Britain" isn't a traditional photography contest; instead, it's more of a marketing program for Microsoft's
Live Search, which contestants used to nominate images. (The nomination period ended last week.) Unfortunately, because Live Search crawls the entire Web, some of the images contestants found and nominated were copyright-protected. The image owners had not granted Microsoft permission to use those images in the contest or the resulting chart. They were surprised and unhappy that their photographs were being used without compensation.
Pro Imaging, an international pro photographers group, alerted Microsoft and Nikon of the problem. Based on that information, Nikon withdrew its support and Microsoft pledged to "obtain the rights to use every image to be featured in the subsequent stages of the Iconic Britain competition."
When big companies make blunders like this, it's news. However, it's also an important reminder for all of us. While it's easy to use services like Live Search and
Google Image Search to find all sorts of photographs and illustrations, just because artwork is online doesn't mean we can legally reproduce it. A simple lesson, yes, but oh so tempting to ignore!
For a list of links related to this news, and to comment on the news or on copyright in general, go to the forum thread
"Copyright and Wrong."
