Amateur Photographer & What Digital Camera: Nikon walks away from Microsoft contest

This is what I got back from MS (start at the bottom)

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Dear Mr. Hunt,

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
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From: Matthew Hunt
To: J.K. Weston

Dear Mr/ Mrs Weston

Thank you for your response. My main issue with this is that there is no obvious way of identifying the work as mine at this stage and that the TOS for Flickr appears to have been disregarded because the images did not link back to the Flickr site. If this can be rectified, then I do not have an issue with the images being put forward per se, only that the images are shown in the selection stage with credit or correct link.

Yours sincerely

Matthew Hunt

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From: J.K. Weston
Dear Mr. Hunt

Thank you for your 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. We appreciate the fact that you have informed us of this situation and want you to 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

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