Olympic Bloggers Learn The Rules; First Rule: No Blogging Anything Interesting

from the the-gold-medal-for-idiocy dept

Mon, Feb 18th 2008 6:55am — Mike Masnick

The International Olympic Committee is known for their ridiculously overreaching attempts to claim intellectual property rights over all aspect of the games -- including various efforts to have laws changed just to give the Olympics special trademark and copyright protection that would bar things that would normally be considered fair use. At the 2004 Olympics, we noted how ridiculous it was that the IOC even banned athletes from blogging anything about the event, afraid that it would upset the media companies who paid their millions of dollars for "exclusive" rights. About a year ago, they promised that for the 2008 Olympics they would allow some blogging, but the rules had yet to be set. Now, the IOC has come out with the official blogging rules for athletes participating in the Beijing Olympics, and they seem particularly burdensome.

Bloggers will not be able to post any audio or video (remember, that might upset the media partners). They can post still photos but only if they were taken outside of "accredited" areas or inside those areas if no sporting events can actually be seen in the photos. In other words: please make your blog posts as boring as possible and make sure they don't include any of the stuff that people might be interested in. Then there's a bit of a contradiction, as the rules state that blog posts should "adhere to the Olympic spirit," but that "there should be no commercial reference or advertising." That's funny. I thought commercial references and advertising were the Olympic spirit.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: blogging, olympics, restrictions

14 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

JB, 18 Feb 2008 @ 7:20am

Blog This
Soon we will have the first-ever athlete stripped of a medal for a non-conforming blog post.

Actually if I were a fringe world-class athlete I would purposely break the rules and blog about the actual events, along with plenty of forbidden photos. The ensuing publicity would drive tons of traffic to my blog and I could make a fortune on ads, and maybe even develop a show-business career based on the notoriety.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Search- Engines WEB, 18 Feb 2008 @ 7:55am

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
This is understandable, considering the huge costs to host and the billions of dollars invested and sponsored by the mainstream media.

However there are loopholes, Bloggers could group together and post collectively in one blog to give it more impact.

Also cell phone videos will probably be taken and posted on YouTube - meaning Bloggers could embed them in their blogs.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
C, 18 Feb 2008 @ 8:01am

Re: Blog This
I'd love to see someone do this. What I'd really love to see, though, is some top-tier athlete use their star power and say "screw the IOC". Stripping a gold medal for blogging would launch a firestorm that would, IMHO, bring down the IOC leadership. Well, one can hope.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Interval, 18 Feb 2008 @ 8:03am

Boycott the Olympics
Boycott the damn show. Its being held in China. That should be enough, but let me make it clear; the Hu Jintao regime is a murderous gang of Thugs; they are supporting Darfur:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=207ffec7-7d3f-48ef-a7b6-7b7a409d82eb &k=41875
That's just the latest, there's always the violent suppression of Tibetan sovereignty and the crushing of human rights of their own people. If we have a hard time letting meat packers push sick cattle into the food supply we should have no problem not supporting another dictatorship. Fuck China.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Gyffes, 18 Feb 2008 @ 8:11am

I dunno...
notoriety hasn't done much for Hope Solo's advertising career.

I'm waiting for the first athlete to get arrested at the games for Inappropriate Host-Nation Criticism..
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Nick, 18 Feb 2008 @ 9:15am

We are missing the obvious here!
As we are not (presumably) olympic athletes, we are not bound. Therefore I suggest that that we start our own Olympic blogs, and include clips and material of brutality from Darfur and Tibet, with the caption "This item brought to you courtesy of the Olympic Comittee".

It really doesn't matter too much what the athletes or the commitee do, amateurs all over the world will be contrasting the supposed Olympic Ideals with those of the host nation, and the commitee that endorsed them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
boomhauer (profile), 18 Feb 2008 @ 9:39am

easy...
easy solution- ignore the olympics. they were fun to follow... WHEN I WAS 12!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ATA, 18 Feb 2008 @ 9:46am

China + Olympics = A Perfect Match
I wonder if The International Olympic Committee will start moving more of the Olympics to countries with weak civil liberties in order to more effectively enforce their draconian anti-free speech "rules". After all, a free press and free speech put a crimp in their exclusivity agreements.

ATA
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Craig, 18 Feb 2008 @ 1:58pm

Who cares?

Why would i spend my time searching for some althletes blog to see their video or photos of some random olympics event I could watch on TV?

Networks pay a ton of money to get the olympics on tv and the althletes are not there to be reporters, there is no reason for them to even be doing this. If the IOC wants to ban them from doing so to keep the network paying top dollar it's their right. They need that money to buy all those stupid posters and banners that decorate the stadiums. Not to mention the medals.... alllll those medals.

Personally I have little interest in the olympics but it is a business and the athletes are their "employees" during that time, they are allowed to impose rules especially when their "employees" begin doing things that lower profits.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Danny, 19 Feb 2008 @ 7:09am

Re: Blog This
I think the only way that would be effective would be if several world class atheletes did this. Imagine the impact if one of the major events did not take place because every single competitor boycotted.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 19 Feb 2008 @ 8:30pm

Boycott the Olympics
I will not be watching the Olympics this year, or ever again. The IOC has the most utterly absurd ideas on copyright ever (they make the RIAA seem rational by comparison), it's nothing but a giant festival for corporate greed, and at least a few athletes (like Marion Jones) are on steroids.

I suggest you all do the same. Don't watch the Olympics. It's all about money...it hasn't been about actual sporting competition in years.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Maurice Cardinal, 14 Jul 2008 @ 8:34am

Boycott Olympics? Boycott Sponsors Instead
Don't boycott the Olympics.

Boycott the sponsors like Visa and Coca Cola.

As soon as sponsor money dries up the IOC will pay attention and start to run an ethical Games.

Here's an explanation . . .
http://www.olyblog.com/f/08/2010SolutionF06192008.shtml
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jasmine Marshall, 14 Jan 2010 @ 9:59pm

Blogging is a common interaction platform for every one.Especially Sports Stars are the most important for there fans and if fans don't now about their star then who else will.I am sure the Olympics Committee will seriously take this issue into there consideration in the upcoming event Winter Olympics

cheers
[ link to this | view in thread ]
คาสิโนอ&, 15 Mar 2012 @ 1:03am

คาสิโนออนไลน์
thx
[ link to this | view in thread ]