It is said that no publicity is bad publicity, but those following the Tourism Ministry may well be inclined to disagree after a video released by the Greek Tourism Organization continues to attract attention for all the wrong reasons.
One or two errors might be forgivable, but this level of incompetence and negligence is stunning and inexcusable.
The Greek government was initially embarrassed over revelations that the new official 12-minute Visit Greece video titled ‘Gods Myths, Heroes’ that was released last week included a short 1-2 second clip from the Olympic Games hosted by Nazi Germany. That revelation was initially reported by Greek resident Damian Mac Con Uladh on his blog and subsequently given international publicity by an article in the Guardian.
Following the British newspaper’s highlighting of the accidental inclusion of Nazi propaganda footage, ministry officials announced that they would reedit the film to remove the clip. The film-makers also took the (rather weak) line of defense that they had taken the footage from a clip from the London Olympic Games website – thus attempting to pass the blame for the inclusion of Nazi footage in a Greek tourism video (where it in no way belongs) to the makers of a film of Olympic history (where ignoring the German games of 1936 would reek of historical revisionism).
The story may have ended there but unfortunately the accidental inclusion of Nazi propaganda was not the only oversight made by the rather error-prone filmmakers.
Again, as reported by Uladh, subsequent scrutiny of the film showed that the film makers had included timelapse footage of a famous Australian beach – the Twelve Apostles - and passed it off as a Greek one. Furthermore the image in question was used without the consent of the photographer who captured the images.
As shown by Uladh's screengrabs, Cherney’s images and those used in the Visit Greece video are identical – the only difference being that the watermark has been removed.
According to Uladh, the photographer, Alek Cherney raised the alarm over the unlicensed use of material. That led to other discoveries of additional stolen material in the video.
The same situation applies for time-lapse footage of Greece taken by the Norwegian photographer (and Athens resident) Stian Rekdal. Rekdal’s images were initially created and used by the photographer as part of a timelapse video entitled ‘Greece’. The video was so successful that some of Rekdal’s material was subsequently purchased by LG to advertise its TVs worldwide.
Greece from Stian Rekdal on Vimeo.
However the makers of the 'Gods Heroes, Myths,' video – either through negligence or worse – didn’t bother with the pesky process of securing the rights and simply used Stian’s images of Santorini, Olympia and other areas as they saw fit. Again the screen grabs taken by Uladh leave no doubt that the images are from the same photographer.
Rekdal also says that it is not the first time that this has happened. Rekdal says that he has spotted his work used without permission in a previous Greek tourism ad. He was ultimately compensated, but only after he raised the issue with the production company.
From his comments to Uladh (available in full here) Rekdal seems willing come to an agreement with the Greek Tourism Organization. However he states that if nothing is done then he will have to appeal to Youtube to request they remove the video if it continues to feature unlicensed use of his work. Such copyright complaints could eventually see the Greek Tourism Organization losing its Youtube channel.
Furthermore the photographer adds that it appears to be a culture among Greek post production to, “take what you want from the internet with no regard for who made it or created it.”
The fact is that the most charitable explanation for the filmmakers using unlicensed material is negligence. It is either that or outright theft. While many Youtube videos include unlicensed material it is one thing when it is being done by an amateur hobbyist not seeking commercial gain, and entirely another when it is done by a supposedly professional production by a country’s Tourism Board.
There is simply no excuse
It has been indicated by some that the furore over the latest video is an attempt by those outside of the country to strike at Greece’s tourism industry.
At least in the case of this site, nothing could be further from the truth. As Greek citizens we want to see Greek tourism thrive for all the obvious reasons.
Indeed it is exactly this sentiment which renders the latest ad campaign so disheartening and worthy of mockery.
An ad campaign for Greek tourism should not be difficult to do well, or at least passably. But this video falls well short of anything approaching the mark.
There where something novel and interesting could have been tried we are given yet another re-hashing of the ‘Gods Myths and Heroes’ trope that was already tired decades ago. Instead of creativity we see mundanity.
Instead of giving new creative voices in Greece a shot at defining the face of tourism in the country in the 21st century, the production is farmed out to tired voices clearly bereft of any ideas who nevertheless were almost certainly well remunerated for their efforts.
On top of that, the film-makers cannot even ensure that they have the rights to all of the footage they used, that the beaches featured are indeed based in Greece, and that there are no accidental Nazi references.
That is not advertising the Greece we want advertised. That is advertising a Greece of lazy, sloppy work and it does a disservice to the actual workers in the tourism industry who work very hard, and very well to provide world-class services in world-class locations.
All in all the video is an utter shambles and reeks of mediocrity and small-mindedness. The Tourism Ministry should be ashamed.
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