Olympics Copyright Insanity Rules Again: Gold Medal Winner Blocked From Sharing Her Own Victory

from the the-olympic-gold-in-copyright-abuse-goes-to dept

Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica won both the women's 100 meter and 200 meter gold medals at the Olympics this year, and then did the super piratey thing of... excitedly posting snippets of her victories to Instagram, which responded by blocking her account for copyright violations. She wrote the following in a now deleted tweet:

“I was blocked on Instagram for posting the races of the Olympic because I did not own the right to do so."

We've already talked about the inanity of the way the Olympic Committee (and various broadcasters) abuse copyright to shut down viral moments, but this latest story really drives home a separate point: how copyright is not protecting the actual people who are entertaining the public. It is only being used to protect the giant organizations who profit from them.

After lots of people expressed reasonable outrage at this clearly ridiculous abuse of copyright law, Facebook claimed that it was all a mistake and her account was reinstated:

A spokesperson for Facebook told Reuters news agency that while the content had been removed, the suspension had been wrongly applied.

However, the International Olympic Committee seems to be insisting that Facebook did exactly the right thing:

“Rights Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) have the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympic Games,” the IOC told Reuters.

“This includes distribution on social media, where athletes are invited to share the content provided by the RHBs on their accounts but cannot post competition content natively. Should that occur, the removal of such content from social media platforms happens automatically.”

The IOC says that enforcing its intellectual property ensures it can redistribute as much money as possible back into sport.

Yeah, right. The fact that a top athlete shared her own victories on social media does not take away any money from anyone. If anything it gets people more interested in the sport. Or, really, more interested in the athlete -- but the IOC can't have that, because that might mean the athlete doesn't have to rely on the IOC to drip drip drip some tiny bit of money out, rather than taking its billions and giving it to Olympics officials.

Filed Under: copyright, elaine thompson-herah, olympics, ownership
Companies: facebook, instagram, international olympic committee, ioc

Twitter & Facebook Want You To Follow The Olympics... But Only If The IOC Gives Its Stamp Of Approval

from the what-the-fuck-twitter? dept

It is something of an unfortunate Techdirt tradition that every time the Olympics rolls around, we are alerted to some more nonsense by the organizations that put on the event -- mainly the International Olympic Committee (IOC) -- going out of their way to be completely censorial in the most obnoxious ways possible. And, even worse, watching as various governments and organizations bend to the IOC's will on no legal basis at all. In the past, this has included the IOC's ridiculous insistence on extra trademark rights that are not based on any actual laws. But, in the age of social media it's gotten even worse. The Olympics and Twitter have a very questionable relationship as the company Twitter has been all too willing to censor content on behalf of the Olympics, while the Olympic committees, such as the USOC, continue to believe merely mentioning the Olympics is magically trademark infringement.

So, it's only fitting that my first alert to the news that the Olympics are happening again was hearing how Washington Post reporter Ann Fifield, who covers North Korea for the paper, had her video of the unified Korean team taken off Twitter based on a bogus complaint by the IOC:

And Twitter complied even though the takedown is clearly bogus. Notice Fifield says that it is her video? The IOC has no copyright claim at all in the video, yet they filed a DMCA takedown over it. The copyright is not the IOC's and therefore the takedown is a form of copyfraud. Twitter should never have complied and shame on the company for doing so. Even more ridiculous: Twitter itself is running around telling people to "follow the Olympics on Twitter." Well, you know, more people might do that if you weren't taking down reporters' coverage of those very same Olympics.

Oh, and it appears that Facebook is even worse. They're pre-blocking the uploads of such videos:

This is fucked up and both the IOC and Facebook should be ashamed. The IOC can create rules for reporters and can expel them from the stadium if they break those rules, but there is simply no legal basis for them to demand such content be taken off social media, and Twitter and Facebook shouldn't help the IOC censor reporters.

Filed Under: anna fifield, censorship, copyfraud, copyright abuse, dmca, korea, olympics, takedowns, video
Companies: facebook, ioc, twitter

IOC President Tosses Shade At Including eSports In Olympics Over Concerns About Violence And Doping

from the facepalm dept

You will recall that a few weeks back we discussed the Paris Olympic Committee's open attitude towards looking at eSports for inclusion in the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games. This refreshing stance from an Olympic committee was a welcome step in the eSports trend, although it came with no promises taht we would actually see eSports in Paris seven years from now. The IOC, as always, would have the final say, and we all knew the massive headwind eSports would face with the grandpappy Olympic committee: eSports aren't real sports. Hell, I'm sure many advocates for competitive gaming were already gearing up to fight that fight.

Unfortunately, it looks like the IOC is likely to turn its nose up at eSports for entirely different and far, far more stupid reasons. The first of those dumb reasons, according to IOC President Thomas Bach, will indeed have a familiar ring to gamers.

“We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people,” Bach told the South China Morning Post. “This doesn’t match with video games, which are about violence, explosions and killing. And there we have to draw a clear line.”

The Kotaku piece points out that Bach himself won the gold medal in 1976 for fencing. While nobody would want to make the claim that competitive fencing is violent, are we really to believe that fencing is less a simulacrum for violence than a video game? Not to mention that this blanket statement that video games are about violence at their core is simply wrong, even on the competitive eSports level. Many games of course include violence. But some do not. Bach himself went on to half-heartedly acknowledge this with a nod towards sports simluations that could perhaps still be included, but the very focus on violence is frustratingly dumb. After all, boxing, judo, karate and wrestling have been or are featured Olympic events, and all of them are clearly more "violent" than video games. And that sets aside sports like water polo, which are known to be physically brutal.

But violent or no, eSports athletes may find themselves not included in the Olympics over an even more laughable concern: doping.

Bach also pointed out that the esports industry remains an under-regulated space compared to traditional sports: “You have to have somebody who is guaranteeing you that these athletes doing video sports games are not doped, that they are following technical rules, that they are respecting each other.”

Okay, stop it. Nobody would claim that eSports is without its drug issues, but the IOC of all organizations keeping it out of the Games over doping concerns is as farcical as it gets. The IOC would tell you, I'm sure, that it is opposite eSports in being one of if not the most regulated sporting event on the planet, and yet doping and PEDs are everywhere in the Olympics. The IOC and its event are no paragon of virtue when it comes to performance enhancing drugs. Listing that as a concern makes this whole thing seem like a joke.

So what is this pushback actually about? Likely money, as with all things the IOC. If it felt that eSports being included would be a major money-maker for the IOC, these concerns would melt away faster than a Usain Bolt dash. Once eSports reaches a certain popularity threshhold, which the trend seems to indicate is likely, they'll get their Olympic bid. It just might not be in 2024.

Filed Under: esports, olympics, paris, thomas bach, video games, violence
Companies: ioc

Boston City Employees Barred From Hating On Olympics; Mayor Says Free Speech Still Intact

from the bwah? dept

The Olympics: an every other year experiment in curtailing the rights of its hosts while draining those hosts of as much money as possible. It's apparently gotten so bad that essentially nobody actually wants to host the olympic games. Those still relentlessly putting in bids to bring on this multi-nation quagmire of garbage probably don't care all that much that the IOC and its smaller sub-parts are money-grubbing, number-trademarking, viewer-hating megalomaniacs that quite possibly lack what we refer to as souls and may or may not be fully-manufactured Hitler-clones. But if they do care about those things, they better not say so, according to what is apparently boiler-plate legal language in Boston's agreement with the USOC.

Nobody who lives in Boston actually wants the city to win its bid for the 2024 Olympic games. And yet, in a joinder agreement between the city and the United States Olympic Committee, mayor Marty Walsh has signed a contract that forbids city employees from speaking negatively about the bid, the IOC, or the Olympic games. It's a great day for free speech in the cradle of liberty.

Boston, home of the Boston Massacre and the tea party revolt, the city from whence the USS Constitution launched, the home of both President John Adams', has decided to suspend their employees' free speech rights in favor of hosting a corporate sporting event packed with more authoritarian bullshit than your average Middle East dictatorship. Let that sink in for a moment.

Or, if you're like Boston's Mayor, Marty Walsh, just dust that crap off your shoulder cuz it's no big deal, yo.

"Mayor Walsh is not looking to limit the free speech of his employees and, as residents of Boston, he fully supports them participating in the community process. This was standard boilerplate language for the Joinder Agreement with the USOC that all applicant cities have historically signed. The Mayor looks forward to the first citywide community meeting that will be held next week."

The Mayor has also claimed that there would absolutely be no punishment for city workers who decided to express their feelings about the Olympics being a big bucket of money-sucking dogshit, but contracts are contracts, so they may not be inclined to test Walsh's honesty on that point. So I'll do it for them. The Olympics sucks. Just read it in a Boston accent.

Filed Under: boston, free speech, gag order, marty walsh, olympics
Companies: ioc

How Snowboarders Are Waving Company Logos In The IOC's Face... And There's Nothing It Can Do About It

from the the-corporate-promotion-that-got-away dept

The International Olympics Committee has this "branding" thing down cold. (No pun intended. The IOC is just as obnoxious during the Summer Olympics.) Everything that doesn't belong to an Official Sponsor has its logo covered (including bathroom fixtures!) until the multi-ring circus of sports (and quasi-sports) folds up the last multimillion dollar tent and blows town.

The IOC is the ultimate control freak. This maniacal desire to cleanse the Games of anything not directly related to its corporate sponsors often results in the sort of behavior you'd normally associate with severe misanthropy. Hobbyist knitters get slapped with C&Ds. A 30-year-old restaurant is forced to change its name. A prominent news outlet has to build its own internal Starbucks in order to escape drinking nothing but the Official Coffee of the Olympics, which is crafted each day to the searing hot specifications of hallowed coffee mecca… McDonalds.

Each and every form of IP protection has been abused by the IOC. Bogus takedown notices/C&Ds are as much a part of the Olympic heritage as lighting the torch or channel-surfing during the figure skating events. The IOC's rules even provide strict regulations for wearing the logos of the official sponsors, not to mention the sponsors who actually footed the bill so these athletes could take part in the Games.

But, as the New York Times points out, even a finely-tuned branding machine like the IOC can be defeated with a little creativity.

The International Olympic Committee, leery of spoiling the canvas, has a 33-page book filled with detailed restrictions on logos. It dictates the size and placement of them on everything from team uniforms at the opening ceremony to the emblems on a skier's gloves and the stickers on a bobsledder's helmet. Observers might go the entire Olympics and not notice them.

At least until the snowboarders and skiers go airborne.

The bottom of them may be the most prominent billboards at the Winter Games, a bit of a twist of guerrilla marketing. When someone such as the snowboarder Shaun White flies through the air, cameras often catch the underside of his board, on which Burton, the name of its manufacturer, is spread in large, bold letters. Those images flash across television screens and are published around the world.

Eight of the 12 finalists in the men's halfpipe competition rode Burton boards. All of them went upside down.

The board makers claim this isn't intentional and, indeed, it probably isn't. But what a fortuitous coincidence. Snowboards have normally featured artwork and company logos on the bottom of the board and with riders more technically adept than ever, the chances of a company's airborne logo being splashed across the screen continue to increase.

What can the IOC do about this? Nothing really, unless it wants to rewrite the rulebook. As the New York Times points out, competition snowboards are roughly identical to the ones sold to the public. This makes the company-centric artwork part of the equipment itself, rather than something added especially for Olympic competitors, which would run afoul of the guidelines.

"The identification of the manufacturer may be carried as generally used on products sold through the retail trade during the period of 12 months prior to the Games," the rules read.

So, if Burton makes a board with Burton written across the bottom of it during the preceding year, and a competitor splashes Burton all over during his or her run, there's not much the IOC can do, other than perhaps stare sadly at all of the toilets with covered-up logos and compose takedown letters for crocheting enthusiasts halfway around the world.

Filed Under: branding, cease and decist, olympics, sponsorship
Companies: ioc

London 2012 Olympics Go For Gold in the Extreme 'Ambush Marketing' Law Event: 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent' � And No Streaking Allowed

from the bare-faced-cheek dept

The Olympic Games are not just about sporting success, but also legal excess � in particular, taking laws to extremes in order to "protect" sponsors, who are routinely elevated to the level of Greek gods during the games, with similarly superhuman rights over lesser beings like you and me.

Techdirt has already written about the UK police getting special powers to enter homes during the 2012 games, as well as free speech being curtailed. Now there are plans to suspend the presumption of innocence too:

One of the fundamental principles of European justice will be temporarily suspended during next year�s London Olympics to protect the commercial interests of sponsors, if Government proposals are accepted by Parliament later this year.

Under the plans, anyone suspected of so-called �ambush marketing� or unauthorized trading near the Olympic Park during the Games would be presumed guilty until proven innocent � a clear contradiction of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) believes the move is justified to facilitate the staging of the Games, which it describes as a �once-in-a-lifetime occasion�.

Regulations proposed by the DCMS state that an interference with the right to be presumed innocent �will be justified� as long as it is confined within reasonable limits.

So great is the threat of ambush marketing to the 2012 Olympic Games that other basic freedoms are being abrogated � like the right to run around naked in public with advertisements on your body:

Streakers who use their bodies to advertise during the Olympics could face a £20,000 [$32,000] fine under new rules.

The London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 is being tweaked to target people who attempt marketing stunts during the tournament.

A man invaded a diving event at the Athens 2004 Olympics with a brand daubed on his bare chest.

The good news is that the tweaked 2006 Act would not apply to people running around naked without advertisements, although a spokesman said: "there may still be legal ramifications". So please do bear that in mind if you experience a sudden urge to take off your clothes in London during the Olympics next year.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: ambush marketing, guilty until proven innocent, olympics, uk
Companies: ioc

Olympics Threaten ICANN, Saying Its Trademark Concerns Outweigh Any Benefits From New TLDs

from the sense-of-entitlement-much? dept

It's no secret that the Olympics seem to have a massive sense of entitlement when it comes to trademark issues -- getting various governments to pass laws that go way beyond trademark laws in those countries to add special protections for the Olympics, barring pretty much any unauthorized mentions outside of press coverage (and even that's a bit iffy). This is not at all what trademark law is supposed to do. Its latest move is to complain to ICANN about its new plans for a .sports top level domain, worrying that any benefits "are outweighed by the risks, harms and costs it poses to trademark owners and the public." The public? Really? Furthermore, the IOC warns ICANN that it retains the "right to proceed against ICANN for damages resulting to the IOC or the Olympic Movement from the implementation of an unlimited number of new gTLDs." Nice of them.

That article highlights that the IOC already has special deals with a number of big domain registrars blocking any registration that includes an IOC trademark -- which is highly questionable, since registrations including trademarks are very much allowed to non-trademark holders, so long as the sites aren't confusing to the public (for example, with "sucks sites" which are allowed). Hopefully ICANN stands up to bullying from the IOC which has no real case here, unless gov'ts keep passing special "for the Olympics only" abusive trademark laws.

Filed Under: icann, olympics, tlds, trademark
Companies: icann, ioc