Slashdot Mirror
Net Faces 10 -Year Olympic Shutout
Noel Carroll writes: "The BBC reports that 'Websites will be banned from using or showing video clips of Olympic events for the next decade. The restriction, which is being imposed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is designed to protect the substantial investments made by national broadcasters who do not want their television and radio audiences undermined by internet coverage.'"
...the lack of respect that online media really gets. Maybe respect is a bad choice of words but it's Monday so I'll explain:
While it is true that online publications are the minority, their contribution to the journalism "scene" seems to be minimized by traditional journalists who are afraid because anyone with just a AOL account (and 2 free megs of hosted space) can get as much attention as the NY Times. Decentralization of content publication is as worrysome to traditional print media as Napster is to the record labels. Anyone else see the parallels between RIAA v Napster and Mattel v That Guy Who Criticized Them On His Web Page? Anyway, The IOC doesn't see any online rags (not counting ABC, CNN, MSNBC and other traditional news franchises) as reputable, established news sources. I just hope in 10 years this conclusion comes back to bite them in the ass... we can all guess at how everything will change by then.
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!
From the Olympic Charter:
The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to
building a peaceful and better world by educating youth
through sport practised without discrimination of any
kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual
understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity
and fair play.
Apparently, discrimination doesn't include websites...
Lausanne, Switzerland-- In a move sure to attract attention from both national and international regulators, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) announced plans to merge its governing board with that of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
The announced merger set off a field of protests from other organizations seeking to offend the largest user base possible, including the MPAA and Microsoft. The RIAA announced plans to either block the merger or join it.
"This merger would create a virtual Internet monopoly in the rapidly growing field of organizations seeking to disgust their own audience" said Jane Regalia of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT). "This is an area we feel very passionate about-- Microsoft will defend to its utmost the ability to inconvenience and annoy its customers."
"Oh yeah-- innovate, innovate, innovate," she added.
Prominant members of both ICANN and IOC were unimpressed with protests against the Internet mega-merger.
"Look, we're not in the business of looking out for users of the Internet," said Jason Henkleson, Chairman of the ICANN At-large Members Dispowerment subcommittee. "I mean, if we were looking out for everyday Internet citizens, we'd be pretty inept, right?"
IOC Chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch, speaking from his palatial half-mile yacht modeled after the more modest Queen Elizabeth II, said, "whatever."
"By the way, you can't print that on the Internet," he added.
Who is RTFM and when will he help me with Unix?
Sure, they have an interest in protecting the broadcasters, but to decide to close for the next 10 years a content delivery system that has been open for less than ten years is an incredibly short-sighted move. To put it plainly, they have no clue what the net will look like in 3, 5, 8 years. Not even this crowd has perfect foresight. Of course, now that they've pledged that, it will probably go into upcoming contracts, and then they'll be bound by it. I think they'll really regret this move.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
If there is justice in the world, the IOC will be held to this in five or six years. The current broadcasting industry world will look so very different, if it's even around anymore at all. Then the IOC can be mired in their own stupidity and die a slow media death without the support of the Internet.
Unfortunately they'll probably just rescind this directive when they realize where all the ad money has gone in a few years, and embrace the Internet media outlets in true CorporateWhore(tm) style. And it's a real shame.
--
Rob Carlson
Well, I hate to say it, but the Olympics were doing just fine before billions of dollars were invested. I mean, honestly, other than a nice flat place, what do you need to run a race?
Sure, without a directive like this the Olympics would lose a lot of fundings, but big deal! A lot of people have lost sight of what the Olympics are supposed to be. Not a spectator event, but a way to bring nations together without war.
Where else can you get two countries that absolutely hate each other to fight without bloodshed?
The Olympics provide a much-needed form of release; instead of the people getting all riled up for war and building tanks, they get all riled up for sport and build stadiums.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
First of all, splitting up events and spreading them out is ridiculous. Delaying them 1/2 a day for prime time is ridiculous. Pushing gymnastics till almost midnight, while saying it's prime time is outright mean. Come on, 12 year old girls are suppose to stay up every night till midnight, just to watch their "prime time" event? What a bunch of crap. You can't postpone events half a day (when you can get on the internet and find out who wins live) in the name of prime time, and then spread the crap to midnight.
What a joke. I hope they take a beating so bad in ratings that it'll go back to the good ol' days. I ****LOVED**** waking up in the middle of the night, or middle of the day, turn the channel to some odd ESPN or even odder channel (many choices), and watch CURLING, or spit ball shooting, or ANYTHING. The event was live (or almost live), fascinating, and much more educational than some stupid heart-to-heart interest story about how someone amputated both legs, and still came back for the 1 mile run. Then you watch the race, and they lose anyway.
I'd rather watch some person in the stands holding a camcorder, talking in Italian, with a budget of only 5 pesos, than watch NBC spend millions of dollars on making McCrap again.
Rader
The Olympics has become a sick distorted representation of what it once was. The money in it, from coporate sponsors has corrupted it's perspective to the point where it's more about promoting sponsors than atheletism (and atheletes).
I thought maybe the web would fix this to a degree by bypassing much of the sponsorship. Instead, the IOC has made a move which will surely push the Olympics in the direction of irrelevance. Sooner or later the corporate sponsors will see the ratings plunge and react accordingly. More importantly though, this is a powerful demonstration to anyone who might be interested in the Olympics just how central sponsors are to the Olympics.
sigs are a waste of space
IMHO the IOC should just open up the olympics and license web coverage to as many content providers as are willing to pay.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Personally I think the heart and soul of the Olympics is track and field, but I'm not sure if I've ever watched it. You'd think that they skip straight to the finals of the sprints, and that nobody has to make it through the heats to get there.
And if you think this ban on the internet is bad, how about this last olympics ban on moving pictures?! The sports highlights would show a picture of the action while a commentator read what happened. They claimed that video could be used after the broadcast, but after watching their broadcast of a US soccer match I wanted to watch the highlights on the same channel and all I got were still pictures!
Another little issue is that they would not allow athletes to post their diaries online. For those of you that have not followed an obscure sport (I follow cycling in the US), this is the absolute best coverage of an event that you can get. Reading in the athletes own words what they were thinking at that crucial moment is far more informative than listening to some bozo that's covering 150 different sports because his hair looks good.
The olympics are dead to me.
PS. How the hell do they get to trademark a name like Olympics, Olympic, Olympiad...etc?!
t
Actually the last Olympics was so completely corporatized that it was totally antithema to the idealism that was at one time what was considered the "Olympic Spirit".
From the "You can't get in wearing a non-sponsor T-shirt" corporate cops, er security gaurds at the gate, to the "you can't eat that sandwich because it violates McDonalds right to sell you an EggMcMuffin" garbage where they would actually take food from people and throw it away, to this pathetic "ten year ban", the entire concept of the Olympics is completely and totally based on corporate greed. I look for the next Olympics to be so corporate-controlled that there will be no one allowed in unless they are wearing "OFFICIAL" Olympic clothes, and if you aren't you will be forced to purchase them at the gate. And if you wish to watch the Olympics on TV, you will have to purchase the "Olympic" version of some cable converter. Frankly, I hope they do that. It will show them that people aren't "that" interested in the Olympics. It was cool a few years back. But most of us are not going to be willing to go the route of "pay-per-view" Olympics on TV. It just wouldn't be worth it.
How many people that watched the Olympics just because the shows they normally watch weren't on? I know quite a few that just watched nothing rather than watch the Olympics. It just wasn't "fun" this time around. Corporatized sports are about as much "fun" as the WWF and WCW wrestling are "intelligent". It just isn't made to be that way.
------------
It now reads:
The goal of the Olympic Movement is to make money, buttloads of money. So much money that we won't actually need to put the squeeze on cities who want to host the Olympics, though it won't stop us from doing it anyway. We want to roll around in 50's and 100's and put rolled up 20's in our ears and nose!
We want to educate youth that there is nothing better than money. As a matter of fact, we just like to say that word. Money. Money. Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney. We will not discriminate as long as you pay up and play by our totalitarian rules, and if you are an athlete you have no rights whatsoever. If we say smile for the camera, you better smile Buck'o!
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
> $3,500,000,000...
but all the poor countries won't be able to and the games will become that much more adulterated without funding.
A more interesting figure would be the breakdown on how much of that wad of bills went into the pockets of corrupt IOC officials, corrupt officials in the poor companies supposedly being supported, etc.
You have been following the news about how the IOC operates, I suppose?
Now, if I discover that the IOC is using the money to feed the starving and educate the ignorant, I'd be as apologetic as I would be surprised. But from what has come to light over the past few years about who they are and how they operate, the risk of surprise would seem to be very slight.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
From earlier this century...
Lawmakers today passed a law prohibiting the use of automobiles, those recently invented "horseless carriages" which allow convenient travel overland, within city limits. While recognizing their unparalleled utility for travel between communities, lawmakers passed this law in order to protect the investments of buggy whip manufacturers. "Buggy whip manufacturers are an important sector of our economy," one congressman was quoted as saying. "It is essential and fair that we protect the investment and business of those corporations by limiting this technology which stands to undermine their very business, and, hence, our very way of life."
-Rob
The simple fact is that the only way the Olympics gets funded is by these sponsors and by television money paid because the advertising is so lucrative. If you force the television networks to compete with the internet, you are going to create a competitive market that results in less money to support the games. The games are already dominated by the rich and fat countries - allowing Internet broadcasts would make it even worse as the IOC could not afford to help fund athletes from poorer countries.
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
IANAL, but if I read the BBC's coverage correctly, that is exactly what the IOC is attempting to do. They are "engaging in an agreement to violate [US] law, together with at least one overt act toward that end" -- the definition of conspiracy. And conspiracy is a felony. So if they continue with such action against any US website, the individuals involved should be prosecuted and (when found guilty) jailed, and the corporation either fined or broken up, and in any case not allowed to engage in any business in the US.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
The net is perfect for an event like the olympics.
I could just see broadcast company:
"Gee lets see, there's multiple events going on at the same time and there's 1 station broadcasting it. How can we fix this?...
I don't know, but let's definitely not use the internet. People might figure out that there is more than the USA in the olympics. Internet Bad, USA good."
bastards
The FBC reports that "Free operating systems will be banned from being used or shown on personal computers for the next decade. The restriction, which is being imposed by Microsoft (MS), is designed to protect the substantial investments made by national software companies who do not want their software markets undermined by free software.