Net Still Not At Olympics

angkor writes "It's two years later and the net is still largely shut out of the Olympics It seems like we were talking about this in relation to the last Olympics yesterday."

Comments

Geez...

[sandidge]

You know, I could care less about listening to Olympic reports online. What I do care about is not being able to listen to the BBC World Service just because the damn Olympic committe makes them block the stream just in case they mention the world Olympic on their boadcast. Nazi bastards.

Re:CBC

[Lictor]

Its a good point, and you're correct that Canadian law *should* in theory have allowed this. If you want an example of what happens in practice though, check out the "icravetv.com" story and the resulting effect...

http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172941.html

Once again, it doesn't matter who's right... it matters who has more money. As long as you can buy... I mean *lobby* the CRTC and/or a good number of MPs, you can just get the offending law changed.

Hypocritical bullshit

[pongo000]

The Olympics are a disgusting affair in which a small group of ultra-rich IOC committee members further engorge themselves by exploiting the trademark laws to the extent that they, and they alone, control access to the games. Why is this hypocritical? Because these old-geezer fat cats profit from what is supposed to be an "amateur" competition. Yeah, you can argue that the idea of "amateurism" has gone out the door now that pros are allowed to play, but there are still some Olympic sports which strive to uphold the idea that the Olympics should be a showcase for up and coming talent, not a parading ground for well-paid athletes stealing the spotlight from those who really deserve it.

The Olympics are nothing more than a greed fest, as this little tidbit from the featured article points out:

But this year,Olympic officials are allowing limited live Web broadcasts in a test to see whether technology can restrict access to video geographically.

'Nuff said.

Re:Hypocritical bullshit

[jeffmock]

I wonder if amateur athletes could have a
GPL-like license for the depecition of
their image in competition? Anyone can show
images of the althlete in competition provided
that they don't restrict the ability of others
to distribute the image to others, something
like that.

jeff

Re:Hypocritical bullshit

[Deagol]

Not only is the spirit of the games gone (if it was ever there), the residents of the hosting locale get the shaft, too.

I live in Salt Lake. As a citizen, I don't mind the world "shitting in my backyard" -- I'm no xenophobe and I welcome diversity. However, as a taxpayer, I've been quite outraged by most of the crap that's gone on these past few of years.

There's too much to bitch about, but my personal favorite was the $450,000 spent to give every bloody city employee an official 2002 Winter Games jacket.

Then there's all the cloak-and-dagger security bullshit going on around here. I work at the Univerity of Utah, and I'm working from home for most of February because it's too damned tough to get to campus! There's 3 black military choppers constantly flying overhead. A guy I work with was accosted by the Secret Service. He's foreign -- looks and sounds foreign -- and made the mistake of biking up to the hill overlooking the stadium to take a few digital snapshots. He was questioned, his pictures were deleted, and he was released.

Meanwhile, all of the on/off ramps into the city are totally un-guarded. Mostly industrial areas, the lots underneath these bridges are perfect places to park large trucks (which is normal anyway) full of explosives. I guess nobody cares about the mere visitors to Salt Lake -- only the corporate sponsors at the venues.

And what's it all for? So Budwiser and Nike can pimp their wares without any trouble. You really think that if this many people gathered for a non-commercial event (a protest perhaps), that they'd enforce a 45-mile radius no-fly zone around the event? No fucking way. This is all about selling stuff, people. I just feel bad for the businesses downtown that are effectly shut down due to the strict security perimeter.

If you want to read some independent local SLC journalism, I encourage you to read the City Weekly: http://www.avenews.com/index.html

Yeah -- I'm bitter. The TV in my house will be off for the month of February. The networks won't be getting my eyeballs (they lost them at Sydney).

Re:Hypocritical bullshit

[HamNRye]

Actually, the Olympic games were revived as an event for the wealthy. First of all, you have to pay your way there generally, so that hinders Somalian track stars from competing to some extent.

So where does all of the money generated by the Olympics go?? The IOC.

The Olympics has never been about showcasing up and coming talent. I don't know where you got that Idea. The no pros rule was instituted because of one particularily talented athelete who defeated some wealthy *sshole.

I forget the guy's name right now, but one of the contestants against Thorpe in 1912 became IOC director and was responsable for denying Thorpe his medals.

His medals were taken for playing Minor league baseball two years earlier for $60 a month. Ironically, many atheletes, Thorpe included, stated that they had made more money playing College Football than Semi-Pro baseball.

The real issue is this: Shouldn't the IOC be looking at the benefits of the Olympics reaching a larger audience as opposed to their profitability??

~Jason

Yesterday....

[aardvarkjoe]

"It seems like we were talking about this in relation to the last Olympics yesterday."

Well, of course. This is slashdot. We probably were talking about it yesterday.

Re:Hypocritical bulls***

[jazman_777]

Because these old-geezer fat cats profit from what is supposed to be an "amateur" competition.

The old "amateurs only" thing was so only the idle wealthy (or those who had wealthy benefactors) could participate. Now, the NBA players can participate, too!

No Suprise Here.

[Rebel Patriot]

Few people (read: International Olympic Committee) realize the power of the net. Those that do are often terriffied of it. The multi-million dollar corporations are as likely to be scared of internet broadcasts of the olympics as the IOC and justifiably so. The Olympics mean $$$$$$ and the threat of the net taking away money from the IOC and the television industry is real and growing everyday.

Eventually I believe all broadcasts of any kind (be it data, voice, radio, TV, etc.) will be linked to the net and this will disappear. As televisions and computers merge (a not-too-distant possibility in many wealthier households) television and internet companies will merge. We've already seen that with AOL/Time Warner haven't we?

When ABC, CBS, BBc, etc. begin to merge with broadband vendors, we'll see internet TV replace mainstream TV, but untill then, people with money will fight to keep the little man (in this case the net), out of his business.

Re:The Olympic Board

[dagoalieman]

I would agree, but I can only see two reasons why they don't want to do this..

1. They seem to like exclusive area licenses. (why go exclusive?? You can get more money out of two groups non-exclusive, I'd think, but I know people will pay good money for exclusive licensing..) As the article said (or perhaps another article), they're testing this year with the Swiss to see if they can geographically limit the access.

2. The costs. How much bandwidth would they eat up?? Gobs. And heaven knows that it already costs the IOC a fortune to run the Olympics, and they likely wouldn't be able to recoop all of the costs on something like this. While the host city pays for a lot of this stuff, I imagine eventually they'd draw the line.. Kinda like the $300 some million dollar opening ceremonies.

Personally, I don't want to see live streaming. I want to see archived streaming. Two events at the same time that you're interested in really sucks, and typically that means the network's gonna cover a third event you don't give a damn about.

Just my ideas, but I realize they may be inherently flawed.

.

Re:what would it take...

[dattaway]

Then you would see the Olympics for what it really is.

The investors would not like that.

Oh well...

[telbij]

I have a television, I don't really need streaming Olympics on my computer.

Sure it's all driven by greed, and it's easy to take a cynical view, but what's new? Money and power have always been nearly synonymous. Corporate fat cats milking the Olympics for profit is only to be expected. We may not like it, but at least we can still watch for free.

What surprises me is that any geeks care about this. I don't view the Internet as the medium of choice for hugely popular events and promotions. It just doesn't scale as well as television. A couple more generational upgrades of bandwidth and more sophisticated multi-casting technology and I might be convinced to lament the lack of Olympics coverage.

Value of Content

[Alien54]

The value of content probably lies in it being unique. Artist peformances, sporting events, that sort of think.

.News is getting more generic. For example there is News Blaster, a bot that uses AI to generate news summaries based analysis of stories over several days. It is actually semi decent, and better then at least half the writers out there.

The end result is to devalue local writers and generic content. having something like this for Slash would probably inprove content no end.

This trend has been going on for years, and of cours the IOC is being conservative with broadcasts, since these make up the majority of their income. Why should they give away their bread and butter free?

Personally I would not mind if they made things like this available online a week after the fact. Same thing for other venues, like court trials, etc. Then folks will be able to see it if they want, but there is no conflict with the interests of the broadcasters. Deals could be made.

Re:Iron Grip

[sconeu]

Most of it revolved around some sort bizarre Ice Capades show starring "The Child of Light."

I didn't know that Belgarion could ice skate!!!

There's a good reason for that

[WIAKywbfatw]

Ever seen footage of how Hitler turned the 1936 Summer Games in Munich into a Nazi three-ring circus? How many of the athletes from foreign nations were forced to acknowledge the Fuhrer with Nazi salutes? Not exactly the Olympic movement's finest hour.

Perhaps you would be happy for the Stars and Stripes to be plastered all over this year's Winter Games, but would you be so happy if China was to push its political agenda just as vigorously when they host the Summer Games in 2008?

No, I didn't think so.

Re:There's a good reason for that

[inburito]

I totally agree that the olympic games should not be a political statement.

Yet, take for instance the opening ceremony. I managed to watch the first 5 minutes that it took to finish my pizza which I almost threw up listening to the crap that the nbc commentators were spitting out of their mouths. After this I just briefly turned the tv on to see the countries entering(only part I was really interested in since there's a couple dozen friends of mine marching under different flags).

Every other comment was an indirect reference to 9/11. Add this to the fact that the athletes entrance was interrupted over half a dozen times by commercials and I pretty much gave up on any faith that there was any decency left in the games.

As much as I managed to watch it, it was pretty much clear that the original olympic ideals were gone.

Whatever happended the olympic games promoting peace and harmony instead of drawing parallels to terrorism, doing live broadcasts from a warzone(american gi's in kandahar) in the middle of the opening ceremony, pointing out the axis of evil when iran marched in, turning the olympic village into a concentration camp or doing a live memorial service for what in Bush Jr's head amounts to war casualities. Then again 75% of the above was probably due to nbc and not visible to those in foreign countries.

As a matter of fact. As soon as the bribery scandal came into public knowledge they should've disqualified slc and given the games to sweden that got second place. I would trust the swedish to live up to the expectations of olympic spirit more than americans.

You'll see more this year.

[SuperKendall]

Actually that's because every year, NBC simply decides that you only REALLY want to see any sport where Americans will probably (99.9% chance) get a medal, preferrably a gold.

Happily for you, this year an American seems to have a good chance at a biathalon medal, possibly a gold. So that means that most likley they will be broadcasting the biathalon to a much greater extent - or at least his portion of it. They had a longish ad about it last night after the opening ceremony which seems to indicate a good chance at least of some coverege.

Probably the coverage will be fairly short, but hopefully you'll see SOMETHING.

I can't believe the /. crowd...

[Jayde Stargunner]

Sure, the IOC is evil. Nike and Bud constantly advertising is evil. There are a lot of things about the way the Olympics are run that is evil.

But, seriously folks... Have some respect here. The Olympics are a wonderful event--and probably the crowning moment of many of the copetitors lives, no matter if the win anything or not.

That fact that thousands of athletes are coming together from a plethora of countries to compete in a fair, civil way is definitely no small feat. Not to mention that the people competeing in the Olymipics, by and large, have trained for most of their life to get there.

Just because they won't allow webcams and the IOC takes bribes, somehow "the Olympics suck"?! Give me a break. Forget about sticking it to "the man" for a moment, and enjoy what is a wonderful event that millions of people worldwide cherish for *the event itself*. Nobody cares about the IOC, or the Nike commercials. I watch the Olympics because of the competition and spirt of the games--that's all.

Of course...since I'm not bitching about something or another, I'm sure I'll get modded down for being "Offtopic" or something. Feh.

-Jayde

Re:Olympics? What olympics.

[Jonathunder]

Actually, that's not really true, especially with regard to conflict between states. The idea that wars stopped for the ancient games is shown by historian Harvey Abrams by to be a modern misunderstanding.

Re:I wouldn't be too down on the security

[billcopc]

If people want to ruin the Olympics, maybe then I'll start watching TV. Call me a passive terrorist or whatever the label they've given to rebels, but like many of you I'm sick of all this mass-media bullshit. The olympics are just another parade of fake people getting richer, and honest people getting shafted, just like movie and music awards ceremonies.

Remember folks, we're all paying for this crap every time we spend a single penny in a world megacorp (and when we pay taxes). The olympics aren't about sports anymore (have they ever been ?); they're about the sheep effect : if you can convince enough weak minds to see and hear your crap, a whole bunch of other people will blindly follow them around and soon you have a worldwide mob of brainwashed credit-card-carrying fools. TV, music, fast-food and religion, it's all the same.