BigShinyThing

The marketing and communications industry often find its inspiration through outreach to ‘edgy’, street or political artists. Think Barbara Kruger‘s work with Selfridges, or street artist Speto’s posters for Brahma beer. At the occasional cost of some credibility points, everybody wins: artists get funding and exposure, brands get cooler creative executions than agency ‘creative’ teams could dream up unaided.

But sometimes, ideas are appropriated for campaigns without the consent of their creators. Consent can, at first glance, seem a particularly grey area for street art, say, or activist content. After all, if you’ve gifted an idea to the commons without a clearly-stated and enforceable license in place, what right have you to complain if that idea gets spotted by an agency and used to sell, say, soft drinks. Or indeed, sports shoes?

Consider, for example, Chalkbot — a robot which writes messages in chalk on the road as it bumps along behind another vehicle. You can send Chalkbot tweets, you can text it, you can probably email it. And whatever you send, ends up on the road, writ large in chalk. Chalkbot is cool. Geek cool. As we understand it, Chalkbot was developed by DeepLocal, and, via ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, is being used by Nike as part of its brand tie-up with the LIVESTRONG campaign of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, at the Tour de France (yes this can get confusing).

We first heard about Chalkbot on Twitter today. But actually, no — we didn’t first hear of it today. We first saw the technology demonstrated a few years back, at a Dorkbot event in London. The project was called StreetWriter, and its creators were a group of highly technical activists called the Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA). Not just cool, StreetWriter was also political. Watch the video.

Chalkbot isn’t StreetWriter. Although based on IAA’s work, Chalkbot is far from political. It’s commercial. It’s also built, in part, by former IAA members. Nothing wrong with that in itself. DeepLocal present their version of its history on their website [thanks to Nathan at DeepLocal for providing us with that link in response to my earlier shoutout on Twitter].

Crucially, however, Nike and W+K’s press releases apparently make no mention of their robot’s activist ancestry.

Our problem with that? One word: Attribution — a key concern of us commons-loving content-creators. Play, mix, mash-up, create using what we’ve made, but give credit where credit’s due: show respect to those who came before, on whose ideas you build. This is simple: even leaving aside the politics, Nike should be putting some more love out. It seems the IAA shares our views on this. In the past hour or so, they’ve issued a press release which details their dissatisfaction with Nike’s appropriation of their work. Read it. Respond as you see fit.

This story is developing. We’ll keep you posted as and when Nike or its agencies make any public response.

Hackney council has been awarded £300,000 in damages after filing a suit for copyright theft against Nike. Back in May we wrote about how the sportswear giant had appropriated the city council’s logo without permission for a range of sportswear.

The payout is based on a percentage of global sales figures for the range, which included trainers, footballs and T-shirts. Nike has apologised and has also agreed to pay Hackney borough’s legal costs as part of the agreement announced today.

Jules Pipe, Mayor of Hackney, described it as a “great result” for the council.

“This is extra money to spend on sports activities in Hackney, and shows that it was worth standing up to Nike,” Pipe said.

This was always about more than cash — there is a serious principle at stake here. Just because we are a public organisation, it does not mean that big corporations can take what they want from local people without asking.

Source: Brandrepublic.

As part of their World Cup promotion, Nike has put together a nice little ad set on the legendary football pitches of Hackney Harshes. They’ve also released a line of World-Cup sportswear emblazoned with the Hackney borough identity. Problem is they didn’t bother to license it from the council first.

Hackney’s newly re-elected Mayor — Jules Pipe — is understandably not amused:

We have been using this logo for more than 40 years — since before England last won the World Cup! I was shocked that such a huge global company would use it without even approaching us for permission. Nike is one of the biggest sportwear companies in the world. They are selling this stuff everywhere — some of our residents have seen it in shops in Spain, and we have seen it marketed on the internet in Japan, Germany, the US and Italy. They have not offered a penny in compensation to the people of Hackney.

One way of putting this right could be giving us a fair percentage of the retail price and some sportswear for every school child in the borough. Nike have taken, for their own profit, something that belongs to the people of Hackney. They have now offered to meet us for talks and I hope they will have the decency to offer a fair settlement and save this going to court.

We have asked them to withdraw all merchandise until this issue can be settled. I also want assurances from Nike that all this kit has been ethically produced.

Mayor Pipe has pledged to spend every penny gained from Nike on sports development in the borough. Given Hackney’s ongoing financial problems, every penny would help.

[Via CMM News]

Expect to see more of this type of thing as everyone gets Really Excited about User Generated Content, social networking and hacking — in other words, all the stuff that geeks have been since the dawning of this thing called the Internet.

The Guardian today reports on how Nike and Apple have collaborated to produce a pair of running shoes that uses your iPod to tell you how far you have run and how many calories you have burned:

To some, it is the long overdue synthesis of two of the world’s most fashionable and recognisable brands, a perfect marriage of design, athleticism and entertainment. To others, it’s a posh pedometer that you put in your expensive sneakers.

The Nike+ system, which has taken 18 months to develop, uses a tiny transmitter fitted in the trainers to send information back to the music player with every step. Runners can find out how they are doing by hitting the centre button on their iPod Nano and listening to a spoken update of their progress. Should the hi-tech pavement-pounders start to flag, they can give themselves a quick boost by calling up a pre-chosen “power song” for that all-important motivational lift.

The sensor kit will cost £25 and will be available in the UK from July 13. The first training shoe it can be fitted into, the new Air Zoom Moire, will go on sale at the same time priced at £65. Six more styles will follow.

Speaking at yesterday’s launch in New York, Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, said:

I think we’ve come up with something that’s really wonderful.

We’ve just scratched the surface because over time we can do even more sophisticated things.

Like to see more hacks? Check out the Wikipedia article for the ‘true’ meaning of the term.

In 2001, politically-aware musician and theorist Matthew Herbert released the album The Mechanics of Destruction — composed entirely using the sounds of commercial products which irk him — as a free download. Tracks include Nike and Starbucks is Coming. The latter is composed entirely from the (heavily) processed sounds of one caramel latte and one Frappucino, with a strong dash of rage stirred in.

Since then, Herbert has continued to focus both microphone and anger on the globalised food industry. The result is Plat du Jour, released in July, and subsequently performed live on tour by an ensemble which includes a chef who adds onstage olfactory accompaniment. The new album is composed entirely from sounds related to corporate food production. On his website, Herbert explains:

I am tired of having to tolerate the international language of cheap convenience food – convenient mainly to those that make and serve it. The bright pinky orange of farmed salmon in aeroplane trays, the branded waters 1000 times more expensive than tap water, the dismal spread of the hotel breakfast buffet, with its pre-formed meat slices, pasteurised juices, mechanically produced bread and Nestle yoghurts full of sugar and potassium sorbate…

This record then, aims to tell some of the hidden stories behind the overly-elaborate and wasteful packets. It looks at what’s on the menu and asks you to makes decisions based on criteria other than taste. The album will include tracks made from a grain of sugar, 30,000 chickens, a salmon farm, the sewers below London and water.

Is it any good? Read the usually-perceptive review at Pitchfork, or buy the CD and make up your own mind. Better yet: get with the program, save on wasteful packaging and shipping, and download the whole album for a mere 5 squids. You might develop a taste for it.