It appears that the London Olympic committee have set in place a ban of taking any photographs in the London Olympics and then uploading them to social networking sites.
This is stated in the ticket holders terms and conditions:
"Images, video and sound recordings of the Games taken by a Ticket Holder cannot be used for any purpose other than for private and domestic purposes and a Ticket Holder may not license, broadcast or publish video and/or sound recordings, including on social networking websites and the internet more generally, and may not exploit images, video and/or sound recordings for commercial purposes under any circumstances, whether on the internet or otherwise, or make them available to third parties for commercial purposes."
See section 19.6.3 here:
http://www.tickets.london2012.com/purchaseterms.html
This banning of taking pictures and sharing them on social networking sites seems to be the most absurd and ridiculous thing i've ever heard in all my years of following photographic news. How can one event committee want to stop everyone from sharing images. in this 21st century world, we have come to the comfortable realisation that taking photographs and sharing them with our friends and family is the complete norm, be it photo's in a coffee shop or when a father takes his son to the FA cup final, it is completely normal and companies, organisations and events have come to the understanding that it's almost impossible to claim full copyright on all images taken at their events when numerous amounts of the public attend.
Another thing is, how on earth are they going to police this motion. Are they going to confiscate everyone's phones as soon as they enter the grounds of the Olympic stadiums?
I can quite clearly foresee 90% of people not being hassled at the olympics for taking photographs, but instead there will be a tiny minority of people who will get pestered and hounded to feel like criminals.
I guarantee that it will be the old granny taking a photograph of her young grandchildren at this once in a life-time event that will get stopped and harassed. This will then become headline news, worldwide fury will be voiced at the London Olympics, resulting in a dark cloud being cast over the entire event.
This is if this absurd motion is put into action.
In the summer, prior to the Olympics I have access to the entire Olympic Park to photograph it as part of my Internship for Siemens. I will probably be escorted around by various security guards (because after all, we're all terrorists, right?) and some HR department snob. So i will aim to quiz these people and get back to you on what they have to say, exciting times!
