Vancouver Art Gallery Ordered To Remove Anti-Olympics Mural
from the free-speech?-not-with-the-olympics-in-town dept
Yet again, we're learning how when the Olympics come to town, your free speech rights apparently disappear. Rob Hyndman sends over the news that a Vancouver art gallery was ordered to remove a mural, because it was viewed as being anti-Olympics. The Olympics, of course, comes to Vancouver in a few months. The mural in question showed five rings, in the usual Olympic pattern, with four of the rings showing a frown face, and the fifth showing a smiley. The mural was hanging outside of the gallery, so the city claims the order to take it down came due to local graffiti laws -- though the gallery says in 10 years, this is the first mural it had to take down. In fact, when the landlord was told to remove the graffiti, he called the city back to ask what graffiti since he didn't see any and assumed the mural was fine, given the history of murals hung there. And, of course, there's already concern over a special law -- passed just for the Olympics -- that gives law enforcement the right to remove signage that they don't like.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.
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Filed Under: artwork, censorship, mural, olympics, vancouver
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Re:
It seems reasonable to think Vancouver-based Nettwerk offered free licensing to their music catalog for buskers, and SOCAN wanted to put the kibosh on it.
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not surprising..
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Re: not surprising..
They think that because it's true, all governments so far have allowed them control everything. Any government that would stand up to them would be blacklisted. So out of fear they all bend over and take it.
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Re: Re: not surprising..
The olympics....road map for borderless globalism much?
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Re: Re: not surprising..
> They think that because it's true, all governments so far have
> allowed them control everything.
Well, if this specific case had happened in the USA, it wouldn't have gone far. The city can kow-tow to the Olympics and pass all the special laws it likes but none of them trump the 1st Amendment. Ordering an art gallery to take down a mural like that would violate about a half-dozen constitutional free speech precedents and would be quickly reversed by judicial order.
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first vancouver then the . . . . .
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.
Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt,
|: Olympics, Olympics über alles,
Über alles in der Welt! :|
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Re: first vancouver then the . . . . .
"Canadians don't get sarcasm", was the message in a recent episode of NBC's "30 Rock". They claim that this was because Canada has a very,very small Jewish Population.
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Re: first vancouver then the . . . . .
Über alles in der Welt,
etc...
You know, Google Translate really mangles this song...
Censorship?
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great tshirt
look at athens, still paying for that olympics and now in a world of economic hurt.
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Re: great tshirt
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This is Great!
I hope the gallery places the mural in a prominent position just inside its front door.
And I hope the copyright holder (artist or gallery) permits free online reproduction of this piece so the message the Olympics (or at least the City of Vancouver) is trying to suppress is spread far and wide.
I also agree with the sentiment that the gallery ought to leave the mural out front and force the city to forcibly remove it. The episode would undoubtedly be captured on video and posted all over the Internet.
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Re: This is Great!
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===Jac
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A great idea...
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Re: A great idea...
Based on a limited sample size of Canadian women I've seen, that is a horrible, horrible idea. You are awarded no points, and my God have mercy on your soul...
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Re: Ima Fish
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Love to know the name of the artist, and the name of the work. This should be free press for the artist, but the news people f*%ked it up.
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