Flickr has removed photographs taken by the Egyptian Secret Police after a blogger uploaded them to his personal photo stream. The reason? Apparent copyright infringement. When Egyptian protesters broke into the State Security Police headquarters in Nasr City, Egypt, among the items they confiscated was a CD containing photographs belonging to the Egyptian Secret Service. That CD made its way into the hands of Egyptian blogger Hossam Arabawy who immediately began uploading them to popular image sharing site, Flickr.Flickr quickly served him with a takedown notice, stating that photos and videos uploaded to Flickr must be "content that you yourself have created”. The removal of the pictures has been criticised as hypocrisy by bloggers such as Thomas Hawke, who says that "this is one giant cop out on Flickr’s part. Flickr knows that Flickr is *full* of photos that are ‘not a member’s work.’ In fact Flickr staff themselves routinely upload photos to their own personal photostreams that are ‘not their work.’’’The photos are currently available elsewhere on the net.Visit Arabaey’s blog at www.arabawy.orgTo read Thomas Hawke’s take on the matter go to tinyurl.com/5wzhknp
