Citizen Journalism gets the real story

9:37 AM
I post this message to the Yahoo! Videoblogging Group regarding today's Wall Street Journal story on video blogging:

I found it interesting that the newspaper got the $20k
instead of the original videographer. Probably because he just gave
the video away without any Creative Commons license on it.

"The video, which shows an elderly couple overpowered by a wave, was
filmed at the Kamala Beach Hotel near Phuket on Sunday morning by a
31-year-old factory worker from Sweden named Tommy Lorentsen.

Reached in Thailand, Mr. Lorentsen said he salvaged the tape from his
camera after it was soaked and gave a copy to Fredrik Bornesand, a
Stockholm police detective who appears in the footage trying to rescue
the couple. Mr. Bornesand handed a CD of the clip to journalists with
Norway's Dagbladet newspaper who then uploaded to their Web site on
Monday.

...

Dagbladet editor Oliver Orskaug says once the clip began circulating on
Web blogs and forums "suddenly the networks were calling from Japan,
Spain and France and everywhere to buy the video." He says within 12
hours he sold rights to CNN, ABC News, and others for a total of about
$20,000. Mr. Orskaug was not surprised bloggers grabbed the video
without paying. "That's the Internet. We expect that would happen," he
says."

10:02 AM
R. Kristiansen sends this email to Oliver Orskaug:

"Hei Oliver Orskaug,
/ Hello Oliver Orskaug,

Jeg leste i dag denne saken på Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB110470611254614746,00.html

hvor du siteres.

/ Today I read this story in the Wall Street Journal
... where you are quoted

Jeg lurte egentlig bare på om Tommy Lorentson som var den som egentlig
tok den filmen fikk en del av de 20.000$ som nevnes i artikkelen.

/ I basically wondered whether Tommy Lorentsson who was the guy really
shooting that footage got a piece of the 20.000$ mentioned in the
article.

Spørsmålet er altså om Dagbladet "overtok" rettighetene da dere fikk
dem fra Bornesand. Dette er nemlig et spørsmål som sirkulerer på
nettet i disse timer..

/ The question is then whether Dagbladet "took over" the copyrights
when you received them (the movie) from Bornesand. This is a question
circulating on the net in these hours...

mvh
Raymond M. Kristiansen
blogger og politisk aktiv og som selv så langt har diskutert saken her:
http://dltq.blogs.com/dltq/2005/01/the_vlogging_er.html

/ best regards ... blogger and politically active and who so far has
discussed the case here ...

2:27 PM
R. Kristiansen gets permission to post the full story behind the story.

This is an amazing example of Citizen Journalism getting the real story.