New FEI Social Media Guidelines

[coffeehag]

I also work in social media (but for big Fortune 500 companies) and this has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I understand the “point” of it, but to @173north point, the FEI isn’t going to monitor everyone’s social and I’m hard pressed to believe they’re going to respond in a timely manner to anyone wishing to use footage.

It’s one thing to crack down on sharing footage captured by the FEI/their affiliates (I just read the new RRP guidelines and they’re doing so), but it seems absurd to penalize athletes and their teams for capturing content on their own devices.

[Belmont]

Funny story pertaining to all this, our marketing team ran a cover photo contest in 2021 for the next years magazine. Someone in France sent a photo of our products at work and won the contest. Late last year, we were contacted by lawyers representing the company the employer worked, saying they owned the rights to the photo and provided us with their media policy (they aren’t a multi billion dollar company for size) that had similar copyright rule. They “owned” any content produced of job sites they contracted to. We had to compensate them financially for licensing nearly three years later because we broke copyright law, even though it was an accident.

Honestly, at the end of the day, many people are panicking about this rule that will never be affected by it. The people I know that ride FEI haven’t bat an eye at it, because FEI has always had a strict media policy. The people I know that work media for FEI aren’t panicked by it. Is the FEI going to go after an owner that shares a cell phone clip? Probably not. However, I personally don’t find it absurd for a company to have a clearly stated media policy.

[fivestrideline]

I totally get this. It’s the timing that’s just absolutely in poor taste. I know it’s the beginning of the year and all that, but the optics of releasing this on the heels of the Helgstrand (spelling?) and Parra firestorms is just not good. People aren’t thinking “oh it is copyright related”, people are thinking “they’re just covering up abuse rather than dealing with it”. I think that’s what is lighting people up right now.

[IPEsq]

Except that the FEI can sanction athletes for some out of competition behavior, so in that way they are already ahead on being able to take action on abuse as compared to USEF.

[Jealoushe]

Tilly Berendt who writes for EN and does presenting for many events including FEI has posted concerns on social media.

[coffeehag]

@Belmont

Probably not. However, I personally don’t find it absurd for a company to have a clearly stated media policy.

Except that competing in the FEI doesn’t make you an employee of the FEI. This isn’t like the NFL’s social media policy which applies to teams and athletes because they’re paid by the NFL. When a company is paying you, then sure, fine, whatever social media policy they want to enforce is fair game. But this isn’t that.

A much better comparison would be the IOC, which has much more reasonable guidelines. The reason that this seems so suspect from the FEI is, obviously, in light of all the allegations and heinous videos that have been cropping up. Again, if it were just enforcing/cracking down on the FEI’s own broadcasted video, that’s one thing. But this blanket approach is just plain weird.

[Belmont]

@coffeehag

Again, if it were just enforcing/cracking down on the FEI’s own broadcasted video, that’s one thing. But this blanket approach is just plain weird.

The whole thing is about their media rights (which includes and clearly defines their live broadcast in bullet #1). There is no difference between paid or not paid, employed or not employed when it comes to media rights and copyright. The statement is very clearly spelled out and tries to cover everything specifically. It is not blanket at all. It tells you what events, what is included, who is included, and what you can or can’t do with FEI owned footage. It tells you where to go if you have questions or want to reach out about footage for your use. There are no blurred lines to read between. Its very clear and concise what they are stating.

Yes - the timing could have been better. However, there really is no better time. It’s the beginning of the year, and its a BIG year for the named FEI events in the policy. Unless any of the abuse videos & allegations were done at any of the following events in the FOP, the media policy wouldn’t apply:

FEI World Cups, FEI Nations Cups, FEI World/European Championships and Longines League of Nations™

If they were done at one of those shows in the FOP, I would hope that the ground jury, stewards, and other officials would intervene.

[coffeehag]

I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m taking issue with. I have zero issue with the FEI enforcing this on their own broadcasted content. I do find it suspect to apply this same ruling on any video footage captured on the FOP by NRH.

In my opinion (emphasis on this is what my opinion based on my years in social media is), saying that “owners and entourage” have “No right to film or use on social media” anything from a warm up or XC course is absolutely absurd.

From where I stand (again, my opinion), this will only hurt the FEI and equestrian sport in the long run. Love or hate social media, its becoming more and more a leading avenue for newcomers to discover the sport and relying on one body to distribute the content is a great way to stop that. Not to mention that the only other option is to use a “share” feature on social? Wholly ridiculous. It’s very hard to take this seriously when the FEI is still posting16:9 videos on their Instagram like its 2012.

So many other sports, including the PRCA, have much more reasonable social media policies. Hobbling the original content captured at events will only limit the sport further and continue to fuel the gossip that the FEI does not care about animal welfare.

[Belmont]

I understand and I do respect your opinion. However, I will have to disagree that this will hurt FEI and the equestrian sport, mainly because the FEIs media policy has been around for years. The only update (which was why there wasn’t a big announcement) was to mainly provide clarification in a small area of confusion that conflicted with the FEIs contractual obligations to Rights Holders.

I clipped this piece from an awesome article that Eventing Nation wrote. I recommend it to anyone on this thread that is concerned about the policy and that is hurting the sport and/or censoring people: https://eventingnation.com/clarification-provided-on-feis-non-rights-holder-rules-for-media-and-content/

“There have been guidelines in place and publicly available on the FEI website for around 5 years explaining what is permitted for Non-Rights Holders at FEI-Named Events. The FEI’s experience with the previous guidelines was that they were not achieving their purpose; stakeholders seemed confused as to what they could and could not do leading to multiple cases of NRHs publishing FOP content from FEI-Named Events on social media and/or commercializing such content on social media.

Following a review, it was decided to refine and clarify the previous guidelines so that each relevant stakeholder group could have a clear understanding of what is and is not permitted to publish

The main change is in relation to previous references to non-rights holding media being able to post some short clips of the field of play to their Instagram channels, which have now been removed to be in line with the contractual agreements.

This restriction, while it has created some controversy, is standard industry practice in sports, and you will find similar regulations apply to many other sporting events.”

As for the PRCA, they name Spectators in their Social Media policies unlike the FEI. Yes - spectators, competitors, etc can video the FOP. However, that video must not be for more than 90 seconds total (through the entire rodeo not per perf) and only for personal use. The PRCA is known to go after people for copyright infringement, all while infringing on Rodeo Photographers copyrights and cardholding members rights. In my opinion, I’d take anything the PRCA does as an example of awesomeness within an association with a grain of salt. But that’s a totally different conversation about the organization and the people that run it.

Social Media is a gift and a curse. People are finding all sorts of creative ways to monetize it and there is an influx of social media managers that have no clue about copyright cans/can nots. Due to that organizations and businesses are having to keep updating and maintaining strict media and social media policies as the times change.

[IPEsq]

It’s not just about FEI’s footage and what they film but that they can claim exclusive broadcast rights over their FOP. Which means you cannot take and broadcast your own footage.

You also can’t be on a rooftop near a ball field and start live streaming a game. This is a similar situation.

[EmilyM]

Based on my Facebook feed, will be curious to see how this is enforced. Many friends posting clips from last night’s 330k GP at WEC.

[steelerino]

And at the world cup somebody was filming the round from their phone in the kiss and cry so…