Court Tosses Company's Bid To Slap Down Olympics Social Media Restrictions Over Jurisdictional Issues

from the get-sued-first,-i-guess? dept

By now everyone should know that the IOC and USOC have completely perverted the concept of trademark law surrounding any mentioning of the Olympic Games. It's gotten so bad that the USOC has taken to threatening businesses that tweet out congratulatory messages to athletes, even when those businesses supported those athletes getting to the Olympics in the first place. The USOC seems to be under the impression that tweeting about the Olympics as a business is trademark infringement. It's not. It never was.

Yet those social media guidelines put forward by the USOC still exist and, coupled with the USOC's appetite for legal threats and lawsuits, that's typically enough to keep companies from challenging it on the matter. But one carpet cleaning business in Minnesota actually sued the USOC over the social media policy and its violation of that and other companies' free speech rights. Sadly that company, Zereorez, has had that suit tossed by the court on jurisdictional grounds, with the court essentially telling the company to come back after it's been sued by the USOC.

Zerorez, based in St. Louis Park, filed suit shortly before the Summer Olympics hoping to clarify whether the USOC could prohibit it from cheering for Minnesota athletes on social media. The company said it wanted to tweet “Congrats to the 11 Minnesotans competing in 10 different sports at the Rio 2016 Olympics!” but could not for fear of a lawsuit by the USOC.

U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright in Minneapolis dismissed the case April 4, ruling that, because the USOC never sued or even threatened to sue Zerorez, the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction.

Considering this suit was seeking a declaratory judgment that text Zerorez wanted to tweet out, but was afraid to because of the USOC guidelines, was ok, this can be viewed from the outside as a punt by the court. The judge's order goes to great lengths to outline what satisfies the jurisdictional requirements for a declaratory judgment. To anyone familiar with the USOC's antics, Zerorez's suit appears to satisfy them. Where the court disagrees is on the matter of whether or not an actual controversy exists in this case, with that controversy requiring that Zerorez first plan on engaging in what could be viewed as infringing behavior, which its tweet does in the context of the USOC's guidelines, and secondly that Zerorez has reason to expect to be sued by the USOC. Zerorez's filing pointed to other cases in intellectual property law in which declaratory judgment jurisdiction was accepted if the defendant had a prior history of filing or threatening to file infringement suits.

Here the court flatly declines to accept that standard, instead suggesting that Zerorez go ahead and get itself sued by the USOC if it wants to then protect its free speech rights.

If news reports of USOC's letters to other companies warning that only official sponsors of Team USA are permitted to use USOC's trademarks on their corporate social media channels create an actual controversy between USOC and Zerorez, a company with which USOC never communicated before this lawsuit, then any company that is not an official sponsor of Team USA could bring a declaratory-judgement action against USOC by asserting the same facts. Such a conclusion would eviscerate the actual-controversy requirement.

Here you see the catch-22 that small businesses face in light of the chilling effects of the USOC's antics. The USOC gets to bully smaller entities less capable of defending themselves in court, but escapes the court when a company wants to get what is plainly free speech content declared legal and non-infringing. The choice left to companies via this ruling is: don't exercise your free speech rights, or go get sued first and then try to defend yourselves.

Which is beyond unfortunate and trends into being downright sad. If the USOC's guidelines bastardize trademark law, and they do, then that's the reason why so many companies would want to seek declaratory judgment that their free speech is kosher. The problem is the USOC, not the fact that Zerorez hasn't been sued yet.

Filed Under: declaratory judgment, free speech, olympics, social media, sponsorship, standing, trademark
Companies: usoc, zereorez

Here Is The End Result Of The USOC And NBC's Over-Protectionist Olympic Nonsense

from the nice dept

When it comes to intellectual property bullying, the unholy alliance between the USOC and NBC seems to be trying to see exactly how far it can push things. Between NBC's "most live ever" broadcast of the games that still has unnecessary delays in both its television and streaming product and the USOC's strange belief that companies that sponsor athletes year-round somehow can't tweet out factual results or news images of those athletes as it relates the games due to trademark law, it's enough to make you laugh.

But it's not only the antics of the USOC and NBC that is chuckle-worthy. Local sports coverage of the Olympics is too, thanks to the laughable restrictions NBC has put in place. Here's my hometown sports anchor, for instance, who came up with a creative way to cover the Olympics by not covering them at all in protest.

Yes, instead of actually reporting on the games at all, Pat Tomasulo of Chicago's WGN decided to relay just how insane NBC is with its demands for how its footage is used and how other news groups are allowed to cover the Olympics. He decided to cover a different international competition run by "one of the most corrupt organization's in the world", whose logo is a series of interconnected triangles and whose theme song is Bump and Grind by R. Kelly. Then he read some Olympics results over footage of his own high school wrestling days, fully crediting his own mother.

Now, this isn't just funny, it's also a wonderful little push back against NBC for its frankly insane restrictions on Olympics coverage. As a reward for being that restrictive, at least one local news organization decided not to report on the Olympics at all. So, NBC... mission accomplished?

Filed Under: fair use, olympics, pat tomasulo, sports coverage, wgn
Companies: usoc, wgn

Minnesota Carpet Cleaning Business Sues US Olympic Committee Over Its Ridiculous Social Media Rules

from the david-v.-SUPERGOLIATH dept

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) must spend a majority of the four-year break between Olympics thinking up new, spectacularly petty demands to make of everyone when the next event rolls around. It's always been overbearing and thuggish, but it seems determined to top itself with each new iteration of its sports-related boondoggle.

In the run-up to this year's particularly dystopian Olympic games, being hosted in a city without clean water or a clean police force, the USOC has already demanded:

- That a company take down Olympic-related social media posts pertaining to the Olympic athlete the company is sponsoring

- That no non-official commercial entities are allowed to use certain hashtags in tweets

- That no "non-media" companies are allowed to refer to the Olympic games, outcomes of events, or even share/repost content posted by official Olympic media accounts

It's these last two that are being challenged -- not by a megacorporation unable to buy its way into the USOC's good graces, but a Minnesota-located franchise of the Zerorez carpet cleaning business.

A small business in Minnesota is suing over the US Olympic Committee’s ban on tweeting about the Olympic games. The Committee announced last month that non-sponsors are banned from even using hashtags like #Rio2016 or #TeamUSA. Zerorez, a carpet cleaning business in Minnesota, will file suit in U.S. District Court on Thursday.

So why is this seemingly random floor cleaning business in Minnesota the one suing? They simply want to root for the home team.

“They’re very engaged with social media,” Aaron Hall, CEO of the JUX Law firm, told me over the phone. “They felt concerned about being censored on social media, especially at a time when we’re going through a time of pain and negativity.”

The JUX Law firm filed its lawsuit [PDF] Thursday, angling for declaratory judgment that would give it permission to do all the things the USOC seems to feel no businesses should be allowed to do when the Olympics roll around. (h/t to JUX Law for sending me a copy of the filing before it hit PACER.)

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2201 and Minn. Stat. ch 555 (Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act), Zerorez seeks a declaratory judgment regarding its rights to discuss the Olympics in social media and other online forms of public discourse as follows:

a. The examples of social media posts in paragraph 11 do not violate the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act nor the trademark rights of the USOC;

b. Businesses, including those that are not official Olympic sponsors, are not entirely precluded from engaging in conversation about the Olympics, Olympic results, and Olympic athletes on social media;

c. It is possible for businesses, including those that are not official Olympic sponsors, to mention the Olympics, Olympic results, and Olympic athletes on social media without violating the legal rights of the U.S. Olympic Committee;

d. The U.S. Olympic Committee exaggerated the strength of its legal rights by claiming “commercial entities may not post about the Games on their corporate social media accounts;”

e. The U.S. Olympic Committee exaggerated the strength of its legal rights by claiming businesses categorically cannot use its trademarked words and phrases, such as Olympic, Olympian, and Team USA, on social media and websites;

f. The U.S. Olympic Committee exaggerated the strength of its legal rights by claiming businesses may not wish good luck to Olympic athletes on social media;

g. The mere mention of the Olympics, Olympic results, and Olympic athletes, by a business not sponsoring the Olympics, is not necessarily a violation of rights of the U.S. Olympic Committee;

h. The USOC’s trademark rights in hashtags such as #TeamUSA, #Olympics, and #Rio2016, do not categorically prohibit businesses from using those hashtags to accurately reference these Olympic topics;

i. The USOC has misrepresented and exaggerated the authority granted to it under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act;

j. If the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act were interpreted so broadly as to prohibit all businesses from non-commercial speech regarding the Olympics, the Act would be unconstitutional because it would restrict First Amendment rights;

k. The USOC violated fundamental Constitutional rights as set forth in this Complaint;

l. Speech is not commercial in nature merely because it is on a business’s social media account; and

m. A statement about the Olympics on social media, that does not propose a commercial transaction and reference a specific product or service, is not commercial speech and does not violate the USOC’s rights.

The post contains examples of tweets Zerorez would like to send out, but the USOC's new rules apparently forbid it from doing so and place it in danger of being on the receiving end of a lawsuit, rather than dishing one out.

Congrats to the 11 Minnesotans competing in 10 different sports at the Rio 2016 Olympics! #rioready

Are any Minnesotans heading to #Rio to watch the #Olympics? #RoadToRio

St. Cloud native Alise Post is an #Olympian competing in the #Olympic BMX events today. Follow her at @alisepost11

Good luck to our 11 Minnesota Olympians competing in #RIO2016.

All very innocuous, supportive and non-deceptive. And all the sort of thing the USOC says no one but official sponsors are allowed to do.

I'm not sure this is the sort of declaratory judgment filing Mike was asking for at the end of his post about how the USOC harms Olympic athletes with these stupid social media rules, but it's the only one we have at this point.

There are some interesting First Amendment issues tucked in between the USOC's outsized trademark assertions and the lower protections afforded commercial speech. There's zero chance this will even be viewed by a judge until after the Olympic games are underway and any decision will probably arrive after the games have finished.

But if it does contain enough actionable claims that the court doesn't toss it after the first motion to dismiss, there's a slim chance the USOC won't be able to be quite so overreaching in the future. If nothing else, Zerorez may find itself freed of USOC stupidity. If it does that, many other commercial entities and nonprofits will probably seek similar judgments of their own.

Filed Under: free speech, olympics, rio, tweets
Companies: usoc, zerorez

How The Olympics Bullshit Ban On Tweeting About The Olympics Is Harming Olympic Athletes

from the all-about-the-profits-for-the-olympics dept

Every couple of years as the Olympics gears up again, we end up posting a series of stories about massive bullshit overclaims by the Olympics concerning trademark law. And none of it is actually about what trademark law allows. It's all about the Olympics' weird infatuation with making sure no company that doesn't give them a ton of money first can "associate" with the Olympics. Again, that's not how trademark law actually works, but few companies are willing to stand up to the International Olympic Committee or the US Olympic Committee. This year, the crackdown seems even more ridiculous than usual, with letters being sent to companies who are helping and sponsoring athletes stating that, unless they're official sponsors with the US Olympic Committee, they can't even tweet anything mentioning the Olympics. Companies that had sponsored athletes were being forced to blur out or delete social media posts about their own athletes because their racing bibs said "Olympics" on them.

In our comments, Emily White, the founder of a crowdfunding for athletes site, Dreamfuel, which many Olympians use to help fund their training or the abilities of their families to come see them at the Olympics, shared her story as well. That included being told that a company built specifically to help fund athletes can't congratulate their own athletes:

We're thrilled to be able to provide a new and viable revenue stream to all athletes, whether they are Olympic sports or not.

We have been contacted by the USOC about all of the above (our team was stunned that we cannot publicly congratulate Dreamfuel athletes who qualify for The Olympics). I want to add that we've also been told that we also cannot post the press we've been receiving on the funding we've been generating for Olympic athletes (we don't have a publicist; all press on our mission is organic by nature) because it uses the O word.

I've been speaking with Emily about all of this and apparently after pressure from the Olympics about their special campaigns to get funding for families to come to the Olympics, they were told to never mention the Olympics or "Olympians" at all. They can only say "athletes" who are going to "Brazil" (they were told they can't even say "Rio").

Last Wednesday, the rules got even stricter as "Rule 40" went into effect. This ratchets things up to ridiculous levels and basically says that if a company so much as tweets a congratulations to an Olympic athlete, that could cost the athlete their medals. Really. And, yes, that's totally fucked up. Ridiculously, the Olympics claim that they put in place Rule 40 to prevent commercialization of the games, that are perhaps the most commercialized sporting event ever -- it's just that all the money goes to the Olympics themselves, and not to the athletes.

At least one company went so far as to build an entire marketing campaign around attacking Rule 40:

During the U.S. Olympic track & field trials earlier this month, a flatbed billboard truck traveled around the University of Oregon campus, bearing slogans such as, “Not pictured here: an athlete living below the poverty line to bring glory to their country.” It was part of a campaign, called “Rule 40” in reference to the section of the Olympic charter which it disputes, that went live in early June and has mainly consisted of social media posts and covertly-distributed T-shirts and stickers.

The campaign takes issue with an International Olympic Committee rule preventing any participant in the Olympics—athletes, coaches, trainers and officials—from capitalizing on their own image for advertising purposes from nine days before the opening ceremony until three days after.

There's even a Rule40.com website protesting the ridiculousness of these rules, and it's getting lots of folks talking about how ridiculous these rules are. Going back to Dreamfuel, with Rule 40 going into effect, she tells me that at least some family members of the athletes using Dreamfuel were surprised and upset to see that a bunch of the images of their children had to come down from the funding campaigns, or the athletes might get disqualified altogether. Because the US Olympic Committee says that companies can't mention anything during the Rule 40 period -- but individuals can -- it leaves Dreamfuel in a weird position where it's announced it can't promote its own crowdfunding campaigns that help the families of athletes get to the Olympics, but Emily can tweet them out as an individual. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. And the fact that they're threatening Dreamfuel helps underline what a complete lie it is for the Olympics to claim that this is about stopping the overcommercialization of the Olympics. Just like Kickstarter helped make it easier for independent creators to create and innovate without having to get big corporate backing, Dreamfuel has done that for athletes and their families. As a platform, it's the antidote to overcommercialization... and yet the Olympics are silencing the company from even letting people know that they can help support Olympians and their families in Rio.

I'm hoping that someone, somewhere eventually challenges the Olympics with a declaratory judgment filing or something. The trademark claims here are ludicrous and are directly being used to silence speech.

Filed Under: athletes, crowdfunding, free speech, olympics, rio, rule 40, trademark
Companies: dreamfuel, usoc

Dear US Olympic Committee: Tweeting About The Olympics Is Never Trademark Infringement

from the seems-reasonable dept

It seems the USOC is just getting started with its bullying bullshit this Olympic season. Fresh off the heels of threatening Oiselle, a corporate sponsor of an Olympic athlete (but not a sponsor of the Olympics themselves), over trademark concerns because the company posted a congratulatory tweet for its sponsored athlete that included the Olympic bib she was wearing, the USOC is now sending out a helpful little reminder to other companies that have sponsored athletes but not the games. And by helpful, I mean that it's helpful in seeing just how blatantly the USOC will outright lie in order to continue its bullying ways.

ESPN got its hands on the letter the USOC sent around.

"Commercial entities may not post about the Trials or Games on their corporate social media accounts," reads the letter written by USOC chief marketing officer Lisa Baird. "This restriction includes the use of USOC's trademarks in hashtags such as #Rio2016 or #TeamUSA."

It's the kind of blanket statement that the USOC likes to make, even as it avoids any of the pesky nuance that might call its claims into question. Certainly, as part of trademark law, a company's Twitter account could not claim to be an Olympic sponsor, or attempt to confuse followers into thinking it had some kind of affiliation. And this might translate into that company not including trademarked hashtags themselves. But what about retweets? What about posts that mention the sponsored athlete but not the hashtags? What about informing followers of the success of the athletes the company sponsors?

Well, for that last one at least, the USOC has boldly claimed it owns the rights to facts.

The letter further stipulates that a company whose primary mission is not media-related cannot reference any Olympic results, cannot share or repost anything from the official Olympic account and cannot use any pictures taken at the Olympics.

Yeah, that's not actually true. Like, at all. As we've pointed out in the past, several times, there is no applicable part of trademark law that applies to facts, such as the factual results or stats of a sporting event. And there's no line in the sand to draw between the average Twitter user and a corporate Twitter account when it comes to this, meaning that corporate sponsors of athletes are absolutely free to mention the results of their sponsored athletes at the Olympic Games or trials. Beyond that blatant lie, claiming that a company's account can't retweet an Olympic account misunderstands the very nature of social media (make your damn account private then!), while blanket claims about what types of pictures of the games can be used completely ignores any Fair Use arguments that could be made, of which there are many.

But this is SOP for the USOC, even as they further lie about the necessity for all of this bullying.

While the USOC argues that money from sponsors and licensees who pay for the rights allow them to support athletes to go to the Games, Bergesen says the stringent rules hurt the athletes because companies that can't support them during the Games can't afford to pay them because of lack of promotion.

"It costs $300,000 to send an Olympian to the Games, and for our athletes, the USOC has reimbursed them about 1 percent of that cost," Bergesen said. "Is that supporting them?"

Well, no, but of course that isn't the point of the Olympics, which long ago transitioned into a money-making machine rather than any kind of international sporting competition. The corruption is so bad, few countries even want to bid to host them anymore. But, sure, keep focusing on corporate sponsors that want to congratulate their athletes, as though that was the problem.

Filed Under: olympics, sponsors, trademark
Companies: usoc

USOC Demands That Company Take Down Twitter Posts Of Olympic Athlete It Sponsors

from the facepalm dept

All I have to do is say that this is a story that involves the Olympics and you probably already know exactly what kind of story this is going to be. That's because we here at Techdirt have posts going back years that detail how the IOC and the USOC go about bullying, threatening, berating and downright pestering anyone it can over even the slightest of intellectual property concerns. The fact that these international games come around every two years now, instead of four, only means this bullying occurs now in near perpetuity instead of at a pace of a half-a-decade staccato.

So, with the Rio Olympics right around the zika-infested, super-bacteria-in-the-water corner, it's time to start relaying the most predictable news possible: the USOC are still bullying people over laughably slight trademark concerns. Though I will credit the USOC this much: they're finding new and inventive ways to come off as petty and money-grubbing as possible. The link above details the USOC's demands that Oiselle, an athletic apparel company that sponsors Olympic athlete Kate Grace, take down the following Instagram posts.

The USOC said these posts were trademark violations and that Oiselle was using them to confuse the public into thinking it was sponsoring the Olympics. Now, Kate Grace is sponsored as an athlete by Oiselle. The posts above appear to be a runner's sponsor alerting its followers at the accomplishment of one of its athletes. You know, exactly the kind of thing that a corporate sponsor should be expected to do. So, are you confused as to what any of the above has to do with the USOC's claim that Oiselle is trying to trade off of the trademarks of the Olympics?

Sally Bergesen, CEO of Oiselle, told the Orange County Register that she received an email from the U.S. Olympic Committee informing her that the posts violated USOC trademark guidelines, requesting that Oiselle to take down all images of Grace and other Oiselle athletes competing at the Trials. The USOC official, Carol Gross, asked that Oiselle stop all “Olympic-related advertising” and take down images by “close of business” Wednesday, July 6.

“This is about USOC’s intellectual property, ownership of the terms Rio, Road To Rio, the rings—all of the branding they use,” Bergesen said by phone. “By using the caption ‘She’s heading to Rio’ and showing the branding [#RoadToRio, Olympic rings] on her bib, which is ironed onto her Oiselle top, they’re saying it’s akin to creating advertising, that we’re making it look like we’re part of Team USA and doing Olympic advertising. They’re saying that our reporting is advertising; we differ with that.”

Yes, because the USOC has managed to get all kinds of generic trademarks on words and locations that have no business being trademarked at all, and because the athlete was wearing a bib while competing that showed some valid IOC trademarks, suddenly the image and caption can't be put on social media. Does anyone actually look at that picture and caption and immediately conclude that Oiselle is an Olympic sponsor? Even the hashtags, a brand new insane place for people to fight over trademark concerns, don't conjure up an association with the olympics.

But here's where we can see the USOC's intentions laid bare. Keep in mind that Kate Grace is sponsored by Oiselle, just not for the Olympics. Instead, she's a sponsored athlete for all of her non-Olympic competition and training. Meaning that Oiselle is part of what got Kate Grace to the Olympics, but now that company can't even tweet out a picture of her success.

Bergesen says she understands the USOC’s position with regard to maintaining the value of trademarks, but takes issue with the fact that the neither the USOC nor its major corporate sponsors support athletes’ training, nor pay athletes for competing at the Olympics, but make vast sums from the event. “It comes down to how the money is spent,” she said. “I would be somewhat okay [with non-USOC rmarketing restrictions] if some of the money were getting to athletes. But the reality is, if it were not for small private entities who actually support athletes, you’d have a beautifully branded stadium with no athletes in it.”

Filled with all the branding in the world and nobody there to take pictures of it all and tweet them out, because the athletes are actually supported by the very people unable to congratulate them on social media. Gold medal for asshole-ery goes to the USOC.

Filed Under: kate grace, olympics, rio, rio olympics, trademark, usoc
Companies: oiselle, us olympic committee, usoc

US Olympic Committee Forces 30 Year Old Philidelphia Gyro Restaraunt To Change Its Name

from the its-all-Greek-to-me dept

Ah, the Olympics. The spirit of cooperation. Of athletic competition. Of the essence of global feel-good-ness, where all the Olympic committees of the world come together to put on a spectacle made of the most brilliant athletes in the world.

Oh, and they also like to stifle links to critical pieces (do we have your attention, boys?), by banning their fans from sharing their experiences via social media, and threatening ICANN for refusing to block Olympic-related terms. And, now, Steve M shares a story from the Philadelphia Daily News about how the United States Olympic Committee has won a 30 year battle they didn't know they were fighting with a gyro shop.

"Three decades after it burst from the starting block, the Greek eatery Olympic Gyro has received a cease-and-desist email from the USOC, the nonprofit corporation responsible for training and funding U.S. teams. The June 7 notice demanded deletion of the word "Olympic" from the food shop's title, claiming copyright of the word under a 1978 law."

This legislative insanity, which I assume is entitled "The USOC Can Do Whatever It Wants Because Olympics Act Of 1978", basically grants the USOC sole usership of the word "Olympic" in the United States, amongst other travesties. They issued a heartfelt email in response to this issue:

"The USOC communications department declined to discuss the matter with the Daily News. But in its email, the organization emphasized the need to "protect the rights of companies who financially support the U.S. Olympic Team," such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola."

Yup, the USOC asserted that it needs to protect the rights of their sponsors (which means they're protecting themselves, by the way) from these no-good gyro shop owners who have apparently been harming McDonald's and Coca-Cola for the past thirty damned years, but with some kind of stealth cloaking device that keeps any such harm from being realized.

Oh, and just for fun, let's look at a few names of the governors of the organizations involved in this story. The USOC is headed up by Larry Probst (not Greek). Coca-Cola is run by Muhtar Kent (not Greek). McDonalds' CEO is James Skinner (not Greek). And the gyro stand formely known as Olympic Gyro's owner is Athens Voulgaridis (more than slightly Greek). The irony of this was apparently not lost on Voulgaridis:

"It's been a part of my life as long as I can remember," Voulgaridis said Tuesday. "We're very Greek Orthodox, we go back [to Greece] often. For them to take something that is Greek and make it theirs for money is frustrating."

But he also states that he isn't going to fight the government. In total, the name change will cost his business $6000 or so, since he has to change both signage and employee uniforms. He contacted the USOC to see if they would help out with those costs, but they declined, explaining that money is valuable and they didn't want to spend any.

The same Daily News article also mentions that the USOC went after a knitting group named Ravelry that was organizing something of a knitting olympics competition to coincide with The Games:

"We believe using the name ‘Ravelympics' for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games," the letter from USOC said. "In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country's finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work."

Yes, you read that correctly. Knitting competitions denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games. Which I happen to agree with, assuming that this "true nature" they're talking about revolves around screwing with people for no good reason.

Filed Under: greek food, olympics, protection, restaurant
Companies: olympic gyro, usoc

Olympics: Thou Shalt Not Tweet (Without Paying Up)

from the the-gold-medal-in-stupidity-goes-to... dept

Every time you think that the Olympics can't get more ridiculous with its attempts to abuse trademark law to control its name, they go one step further into ridiculousness. Following the threat to goggle maker UVEX for mentioning skiier and gold medalist Lindsey Vonn on its website, the US Olympic Committee is threatening Red Bull and Verizon for daring to tweet about the Olympics without first paying up. I'm not kidding. Both companies showed some basic Olympic spirit with some simple tweets, supporting some winning athletes. Here's Red Bull's "offending" twitter message:

We're rooting for you @LindseyVonn @Shaun_White @GregBretzz and @Drahlves in the 2010 Winter #Olympics!

And Verizon's:

Who are the REAL American Idols? Shaun White, Lindsey Vaughn & Shani Davis draw more viewers than American Idol

Seriously. And the US Olympics straight-faced response?

"When people partake in this kind of ambush behavior, it hurts American athletes."

Yes. Two simple tweets from companies cheering on successful Olympians are considered "ambush behavior" that "hurts American athletes." Apparently, these threats from the Olympics worked on at least Red Bull who pulled its Twitter message supporting the athletes.

This goes beyond the typical abuse of trademark law to ridiculous levels. While Verizon hasn't yet pulled its post, I would hope that it will stand up for basic free speech rights that say the Olympics has no right to tell it what it can and cannot tweet in support of the games.

Filed Under: free speech, olympics, trademark
Companies: red bull, usoc, verizon

US Olympic Committee Sues Organization Trying To Build Sports Museum

from the the-spirit-of-competition dept

The Olympics are notoriously protective of the Olympic name, even trying to block the trademark application for the Olympian, a newspaper in Olympia, Washington. Paul writes in to let us know that the US Olympic Committee has now decided it's worth suing what appears to be an almost defunct non-profit organization called The International Institute for Sport and Olympic History. Apparently the organization was set up to try to raise funds for a museum dedicated to sports, but from the article, it sounds like it has failed to get very far, and has been (perhaps) left to die already (at one point, it was reported that the Institute's bank account contained $52). But never one to let a dead organization die peacefully, the USOC has sued and is seeking "treble damages." What damages? This is basically a defunct organization that never did anything. The USOC says, at the very least, it deserves three times the profits the organization made off the Olympic name. Well, three times zero is zero... so seems like this one could be settled pretty quickly.

Filed Under: museum, olympics, trademark
Companies: usoc