Slashdot Mirror
Olympics to Have Live Online Coverage, But Not For Americans
Rytsarsky writes "According to this AP story (mirror), live video from the Olympics will be viewable online. However, 'the footage will be highly restricted to protect lucrative broadcast contracts, which are sold by territory - $793 million paid by NBC alone. Web sites must employ technology to block viewers from outside their home countries, so U.S. Web surfers won't benefit from the BBC's live coverage. They'll have to settle for highlights posted after NBC broadcasts, which are already largely tape-delayed.'" Interestingly, this AP wire story was picked up by CNN.com (it was at this URL and this URL), ran for a few hours, and now has been removed - I guess CNN didn't think it was newsworthy. *shrug*
Will the Ruling help Tivo owners across national boarders?
They were right.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Just use an open proxy in Europe and you'll be wathing the games live as well.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Should we let Ad companies dictate not only what we can or cannot see on televison, but what we can, or cannot access via Interent?
These ad guys go to far, and, of course, the media will cover up stuff like that. Free press my ass.
MLB.com does this for their game broadcasts too. I'd gladly pay for a subscription so I could watch the game when I'm at work or on the road.
The point of watching it on the web is that I don't have a TV available, so I'm willing to put up with the crappy quality, high bandwidth, etc. of an Internet broadcast.
If I had a TV, I'd watch that instead. Blackouts are meant to help ticket sales, or to push people into watching the TV station that's paying for the rights. But if TV isn't an option, then I go for radio or internet.
Can we expect to see these available for download with BT? Almost every other TV show is...
Stickin' it to The Man whenever and wherever possible!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Finally, a use for open proxies.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
This is dumb....not unexpected, but still dumb. Hmm...lessee....most of us woud still be at work for primetime events in Athens anyway and that would be perfect to drive the net admins batty with streaming packets!
Gorkman
Does anyone have an idea why the the links to the CNN website gives different variations of the classic 404 theme? Even if the trailing slash is stripped from the http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/08/05/ol ympics.online.ap link, a plain object not found message is displayed.
//Wegge
"Follow the money."
At least since Los Angeles in 1984 (which is as long as I've been following it), it hasn't been about sport or competition or peace.
It's been about bribery, profits, and raking in the dough.
So does any of this surprise us?
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
i was thinking of making an olympic website, im curious if I do go get live feeds by way of proxy or something, and then I post that on my website.... .... what sort of trouble would I be in? any lawyer types out there?
Where's the time that the Olympics were about sport. Now it's all about money. Look at the corruption scandal which was brought out by BBC, the numerous cases of doping discovered recently (in cycling, athletics, soccer,...). And now this, people cannot even have Free access to images about the event, just because some people again want to get more money out of it. It's sad.
anonymouse.ws
IIRC, icravetv.com used a zip code based system to identify their "legal" (canadian) users from their "illegal" (american) users. Type in a Canadian zip code and off you go.
America has been wronged. The BBC clearly hates freedom. Effective noon tomorrow, we will be invading the small island nation of BBC. Their weapons of mass communication must be obliterated: if we can't have the Olympics, no one can.
in the Land of Money.
On top of that, U.S. viewers must verify their identity using a credit card from Visa - an NBC advertiser - though they will not be charged.
Not a Visa cardholder? You're out of luck.
Interesting but not surprising. I'm surprised you don't have to prove you were one of the 8% of the population that ate at McDonalds that day...
Some European broadcasters are limiting video to high-speed, broadband customers only, seeking to keep foreigners from connecting via international phone calls.
Oh fuck you, give me a break, no one is going to download Olympics video over dialup via an international call. It's just not worth it. Perhaps AmEx would love for you to pay for that call on their card?
"Of course you get frustrated you can't do everything you want, but compared to four years ago, this is incredibly much better," said Kristian Elster, who works on the Web site for Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Maybe in Norway you can't see the shit on TV. NBC comes over the air here and you see a ton of stuff. Most of the really boring shit is on during the day and they play the important races at prime time (live or not). Watching video via the net doesn't impress me.
Fans are the ultimate winners, Joerg said. Even with some 12,000 hours of total TV coverage across Europe, "you cannot cover all," he said. "Broadband and mobile technology can complement the traditional television coverage."
No you can't and most of it sucks anyway. What's shown is generally the important/good stuff. At least in my experience. 1250 hours of coverage is a lot.
Does anyone watch the games these days ?
I hear more about strike action and doping than the athletes.
Wake me up when there's a final medal count...
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Wow.
Usually I support the pirates and get pretty beat up around here.
Now I'm looking at a full page of posts detailing how to infringe on these distribution rights.
Is this a major flip-flop or are these posters different from the usual crowd around here?
stick it to the man!
free the bits!
And of course they'll only cover the "name" events or ones that we have a hope of winning. And they'll have a "LIVE" bug at the top of the screen, even though it will be tape-delayed by at least half a day.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
of us Americans when I say, "That sucks."
These aren't the sigs you're looking for.
I clearly remember already reading this article that stated the UK and USA would be the only countries to receive live web coverage. There was a section about how CBC (in canada) was not going to be part of this and canadians would have to suffer with just highlights.
No, this is
Alright slashdotters! You just solved Katie Jones' domain name dispute. Where are you going next? To the Olympic coverage problem!!!
I'll set up a TCP redirection process on my servers ;)
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
It indicates that content providers have to do a series of lookups to verify you are within their scope of coverage. Proxy detection is apparently in place (how good though is hard to say without testing).
Still, the Olympics have been boring as hell since 84. Plus, considering the Balco (sp?) steroid scandal and how the USOC is reacting to it, it's hard to trust that the athletes aren't all hopped up anyhow.
Every time the Olympics are on I try and see if I can watch the (usually) one day that Table Tennis is to be shown on television. Every time I've done that the television broadcasts always have focused primarilly on Artistic Gymnastics and other things I don't care about. In 1992 I watched all day on that day and all I saw were about 2 minutes worth of highlights and results in a small box superimposed over the other sports.
All I'm saying is I was hoping to get live coverage of Table Tennis this Olympics. So much for that pipe dream.
Let's play video games with mailmanZERO
What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy? Zack De La Rocha
so, what's to stop a high-speed provider in the UK from setting up a squid proxy with the "forwarded_for off" line in the config? I mean, come on, really this is utterly retarded.
"This above all, to thine own self be true"
ok, i'm taking offers for relocations to Star #46132. anyone wanna move with me?
this planet sucks. it's gone to hell.
"next!"
I thought it was about the mind-numbing number of feel good stories about the atheletes and the endless droning on of commentators. Oh and throw in the tape delays and the restriction of some events to cable tv stations that not everybody has access to. It's made NBC and CBS coverage of the olympics become absolutely intolerable. I'll probably just watch the US men's basketball team struggle to medal just so I can get a laugh.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Can anyone at NBC say "ssh tunelling"? I would have thought it would be better to try to get people to watch your TV stations by providing a better service than the one transmitted down braodband (I cannot believe that is difficult) rather than trying to block out competition (which by using proxy servers would be easy to circumvent anyway). What happened to good old fashioned US cpaitalist competition?
Web Sig: Eddy Currents
Nothing quite like a robust multiple socks proxyt client to make one all warm and snugly. Now, to return to my plan to undermine the capitalist machine.
-rt
This is the first time I've ever considered using a proxy outside the US to view content. Isn't usually the other way around?
Otherwise, maybe you could watching BBC live olympic coverage online too.
Thats fine I suppose....
But is it really that important?
I look at it this way... if the people who run the olympics are so deeply in corperate broadcasters pcokets that they are willing to put up restrictions like this... do I even want to give them the benefit of watching?
I think not. I thought it was bad enough when I realised how political the whole Olympic Games were. Now that it seems to be going more and more corperate, its finnaly the last straw.
I will not be watching a single Olympic event, on the internet, on TV, hearing it on the radio etc. They are, as far as I am concerned, a complete non-event so much so that they may as well not even happen. The entire circus is dead to me.
I shall, from this day forward acknoledge the olympics in only 2 ways.
1. As a part of History. Obviously they happened. They caused traffic jams in whatever city they were in, etc.
2. I shall henceforth encourage all others who mention the Olympics to join me in not watching it.
Wont you join me too? Does it really matter? Sure its cool to watch people run around and compete at physical things, but is it really worth supporting these large corperations that are happy to engage in agreements that take away your choice as a consumer just to squeeze a few more dollars into their already overflowing coffers?
This is simple greed, and I have a personal problem with it. Hence, I will do something that even the libertarians out there can't disagree with. I am voting with my eyes and my dollars. I am not watching the olympics and avoiding anything that supports is.
Its not that this is the be all nd end all, it was entirely too nationalistic and corperate long before this, this is just the straw that broke this camels back.
Wont you join me?
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The Official Pimps of the 2004 Olympic Games.
What about all those events NBC never ever show on TV anyways?
yes, everythng is bushes fault.
Actually, you're 100% right about it not being Bush's fault. He's not fucking smart enough to think that we need to play perestroika with the Olympics. His asshole cronies, OTOH, are smart enough. Why do you think that they instituted "Free Speech Zones"? They don't want Bush's feelings to be hurt when he sees signs that read "Bush is a coke snorting, beer pissing, cock sucker that kills people for money."
get over it, no one has liked the US for about 55 years. time to accept that a move on.
And yet, a good majority of the population isn't even aware of it. Yeah, we live in a free world my ass. We are under just as much spin as ever.
Courtesy of BBC
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," George Bush told an audience of military brass and Pentagon chiefs. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Curmudgeonly as always,
Kilgore Trout
Also, Tor, the anonymizing onion-skin routing system mentioned on Slashdot yesterday, could be modified to allow requesting an endpoint in the country in question, bypassing attempts to block connections based on nation.
May we never see th
CNN is the liberal media...
This restriction would be fine if the coverage we got in the US was good. But as I've seen over the years, it is very limited and focused solely upon the major *US* athletes in the most popular events. Or the play the events I would like to see at such random hours you never know when you can watch it. I personally have watched the CBC more for these types of events as their coverage is far less nation centric and more broad unbiased (in my opinion). So maybe the the Canadians can do something right (j/k).
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
Is this really a big deal? NBC wouldn't be able to sue those foreign websites who didn't comply.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Every word was pronounced properly. It couldn't have come from the real Head American Jackass.
"He's not fucking smart enough to think that we need to play perestroika with the Olympics"
Perhaps you meant 'glasnost'?
And no, I'm not talking about the Olympic story.
Since when does a CNN story VANISH?
I hate to put on the tinfoil hat, but CNN is a division of Time/Warner, one of the monstrously-huge media entities trying to get so-called "intellectual property" the same status as "real estate" - they want a piece of "intellectual property" to be eternal, like land, where it can be kept - and milked - forever, without any expiration.
They clearly want to profit forever off all works that are created, and they want to use technology to do it, and they want to force the use of technology through legal means. In short, they want to sell you a license to think.
Now, let's look at CNN: this is a gigantic news organization that is the main source of news for millions of Americans that seems to have yanked a relatively innoculous story about "intellectual property."
I've heard of CNN changing stories, and moving them, but I've never seen once totally removed - and a search of CNN for keywords in the original AP article finds nothing.
It is very clear that the MPAA, RIAA and other gigantic entities that want much more restrictive laws on copyright and viewing licenses would prefer to have these laws passed without reference to the American public.
They don't want people to know what they are doing until it is done.
Now, we have a relatively tame story about Olympics, but just interesting enough to perhaps make Joe Six-Pack think for a moment, "Hey, why to those Frogs and Brits get to see stuff that I have to pay for?"
Is it possible that this is why the story was removed?
Could CNN be filtering news that could irritate the American masses into seeing that the Fair Use Doctrine, Limited Copyrights and a cornucopia of other rights currently enjoyed by Americans are slipping away?
That scares me.
They should be off this year. Athens is overrun with feral dogs - quite a public health and safety hazard. Keep your eyes on your kids, folks.
I wonder - is there any entity out there anymore that's rooting for the common person.
Here we have commercial interests censoring viewership of Athletic games, for which the Geeks used to halt all wars and campaigns to compete.
Traditionally we have relied on goverments to keep everything on the straight and narrow, but with gevernments now having their own agenda no one is keeping an eye on the corporations.
I don't like turning things political, but I came across an interesting definition in the auld dictionary today:
(From dictionary.com)
One who governs by terrorism or intimidation; specifically, an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France. --Burke.
Irony - the term terrorist was originally coined for a government.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
Pay a month subscriptiuon to foreign prograsmming in Dish Network, and watch ALL the games, not only the ones where Americans compete!!! Also will be real time, not 20 hours late when NBC wants, and without biased commentary.
You don't have rights to see anything on television. It's a privilege, a service provided by private companies.
Then you mention "free press" which is irrelevant, because this isn't the government suppressing anything.
Isn't tax payer money going to support our USA teams? If so I think we have a basic right to see them perform.
I'm a little upset that the olympics is now becoming a pay per view type event with exclusive deals to big companies to distribute. This was once an event that unified the world in healthy competition, all in good fun. Now it's gone corporate and is gouging people.
I'll admit I could care less about a lot of the events, but that's possibly just because I never get to see them and appreciate them. As it is, I never know what events are going on or when. The athletes I don't know by name etc etc.
The olympics IMHO has a PR problem. They are failing to reach younger folks who would normally be the ones to care about this and are therefore losing ground to the X Games and similar events. I don't even know anyone these days that gives a shit about the olympics. Most people I talk to about it just shrug and forget it.
It's 'news' that effectively encourages people to go look at a competing network. For the CNN beancounters, this is most certainly not worthy news.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Ok, so we just bounce off somewhere overseas and it wont know the difference..
They do this now with races, they black out the local area and penalize the locals that dont get to go... but let everyone else in the world see what is happening..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I know that this might not be the place, actually... nevermind, this is Rick James we're talking about. More info can be found here:
http://www.rickjames.com/
It's a sad day. One of my favorite American trainwrecks of an icon just passed away.
#SickNotWeak
That's right! CNN won't reflect the mainstream of America until it simulcasts The Rapture that we've earned in Baghdad. This is our due. People with questions about the Apocalypse can fry in Canada.
--
make install -not war
What's boring to NBC and you may be quite interesting to another American. Of course, NBC will broadcast those sports that appeal to the largest group of American TV watchers. But that shouldn't give them the right to totally prevent others from watching other sports. At least, they wouldn't be given this right in a free country.
Indeed, this time the Geeks will fight for their right to view
(long battle cry)
what are you waiting for...?
It's now "new fashioned"...[global] capitalist competition is only in effect when it benefits the corporation(s) (i.e. $$$), not the people.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The CNN execs probably decided it would play better on CNN International, rather than add to the antiAmerican bashing by the liberal media.
I'm curious. What are you thinking of? I've seen relatively little bashing of America by the American media. Criticism of Bush, sure, but he's hardly America.
If I criticize one of my town official's actions, am I bashing my town?
May we never see th
Define common person please. Otherwise you just sound like a communist. There is no such thing as a common person. No one is rooting for you, or for me. It's your job in a free society to root for yourself, to do for yourself and to be an independant free thinking individual. Failing to do that means failure in life. I don't want to live in your nanny state where uncle Sam and big brother make all the "safe" decisions for me. I don't trust government or corporation and nowhere in the constitution does it say I should.
...even give a rat's rear end about the Olympics anymore anyway?
Sadly, this isn't a right. The Olympic orgs own the rights, sell them (exclusively, ugh) and you get whatever craptacular packaging the buyer thinks gets them the best ratings so they can charge fat piles of lucre in advertising fees. Don't like it? Travel! I've heard tick sales have been very slow, so you can probably pick up most of what you want cheep.
These ad guys go to far, and, of course, the media will cover up stuff like that. Free press my ass.> Who's paying for the press? You? Well, if it's pay-per-view, ok, but if it's cable or air, it ain't you, Bubba.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
2: I think the Olympics are a tedious pile of shite, so I don't have to!
(Wait, that means the BBC has blown an ungodly amount of money on something I have no interest in, and it'll be sport, sport, sport all summer long... So, actually, no changes there. Carry on!)
You must think in Russian.
this is just more proof that Americans need to pick up guns and start shooting some of these assholes to get our fair use back.
because Slashdotters have no interest in sports whatsoever.
What you think sucks is probably what I want to watch.
I don't give a damn about track and field, but just TRY to watch a reasonable amount of coverage for cycling.
Same with the winter olympics. They should change it to the "Figure Skating and Snow Skiing World Championships", because that's all you ever see. More bobsled. More luge. More biathlon.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
What happened to good old fashioned US cpaitalist competition?
It died when they offered licenses and monopolies.
The Olympics have always been broadcast in the US with substandard coverage and a ridiculously low useful-programming-to-commercials ratio. Want to watch an actual long-distance track event? You're SOL. Want to see an event before hearing the results? If it's deemed ratings-worthy, you'll have to wait for prime time. And why? So that execs can line their pockets with ad revenue. There is no freedom of the press because corporations run the country. When are consumers going to stand up and say that they've had enough of this? It's ridiculous! Seriously, watch a taped broadcast of anything from 10 years ago. There are less commercials per break, and less commercial breaks per show. We're getting less and less while networks make more and more, and why? Because no one does anything about it! Now NBC has a monopoly on Olympic coverage in the US and they're actively preventing anyone from circumventing the monopoly. I don't know about anyone else, but I, for one, will be streaming Olympic coverage as much as possible, even if I'm not watching it, as a sort of silent protest.
This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
I mean seriously, all you need is another geek in another country to put up a proxy server on a high speed connection and we have video. Or just stream it on-line themselves with some of the P2P streams out there.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
...on what 'corporation' (Democrat/Republican) you support.
:(
yay team...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I guess CNN would rather keep Americans from finding out how their freedoms are being sold. NBC paid good money for your attention; you shouldn't have the right to choose from what source you watch.
What about non-aired events like skeet shooting or the like? Will they block those as well?
OK, I'll drop the sarcasm and just tell it straight CNN won't show Americans the news that we're getting imposed self-censored Internet, cropped of things like live Olympic coverage, because corporations like CNN protect those rights above all else, including their business of reporting important stories to Americans. Now, wasn't that better as sarcasm? And you'd get to think for yourself. You'd have to, to resolve the paradox of the "liberal media" self-censoring to avoid America-bashing. Gee, maybe the media isn't so liberal after all...
--
make install -not war
Since its their page, and they are under NO legal obligation to retain them, they can pull any story at any time.
This is a danger of online media, its a bit harder to pull a story out of a newspaper after its in the subscribers hands..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's been my observation that of the 1250 hours of broadcast Olympic 'coverage' that the average US citizen has available to them during the Olympics, less than 10% of that time is actual event coverage.
I will grant that I really do not want to see each elimination heat of the 1600 meter relay. I suspect that watching a bunch of guys and galls standing and shooting at targets for hours at a time would probably get old as well. (For a lot of people anyway.)
What gets really old for me however is watching 2 hours of interviews, "background" material, someone pacing an athlete during his or her training in the years before while some narrator discloses how this athlete fought tooth and nail from some long ago disaster. All leading up to a 10 minute tape delayed presentation of the athlete finishing whatever event he or she was a part of, with a 5 minute tape delayed award ceremony with the (you probably never heard of this person more than 3 hours ago) now celebrity athlete being one of the three medalion winners (or part of one of the teams on the stairs.)
Of course that two hours of 'history' is part of four hours of time, the other half of the time being spent providing ad space for the Olympic sponsors. After the half hour spent for the "main event" (10 min of event, 5 min of Awards, 15 min of ads) you might get part of a half hour to wrapup that 'highlights' some of the other events that happened that day, mostly to explain how whichever US athlete was in the event did that day. (But only if they came in close to or as a medalist, and only if whatever producer happens to be running the show that night thinks the event might interest someone with his or her own narrow view of what the Olympics should be.)
1250 'hours' of 'coverage' is probably Wonderful TV, but what the US population sees is hardly coverage of the Olympics.
Then again, that's my opinion.
-Rusty
You never know...
No no. Free has nothing to do with media coverage of an event. A free market causes control of the event by a single entity because they were willing to pay for it.
Free means that you can leave this country at your own will to watch them live in Athens.
A corporation IS a 'person'. You were probably confusing this with the term 'Citizen' which you probably were, until you signed up for the free entitlements.
n/t
...aren't most proxies open by mistake? And you'll get heavily fined (or worse) for using them?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Until yesterday I didnt have a TV but wanted to watch the olympics so I bought a TV tuner for my computer. But I'm in Canada so might have access to these. Oh well, now I can watch other things too.
Maybe I want to watch through some of the lesser aired events instead of just watching highlights of what the TV wants me to see.
As long as they own the media, I guess they can do what they want.
Why all this fuzz about an old Token Ring PCI card driver?
//TheToon
BUSH THIS BUSH THAT. I'd say you've got bush on
the brain but you're obviously queer so I won't.
Isn't that our airwaves use to broadcast television?
Looks good for your age..
There should be competition amongst the broadcasters to show better Olympic coverage. This monopoly by the best bidder is bad for American Olympic viewers. This must come to the end.
If a person wanted, they should be able to go to the Olympic stadium w/ a camcorder and stream it to anywhere on the internet. We got internet, let's put it to good use. Internet for the People.
No more problem with doping then. They use it anyway, so LET THEM - its not as if these athletes have much in common formwise with ordinary people anyway so let them go the whole nine yards, shoot themselves full of stuff and see who mixes the best batch. And the excitement is back! Who can create the best superman - place your bets gentlemen (and nerds)!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Athens is 8 hours ahead of the central united states so unless you intend on watching the prime time events at around 2 am stop bitching about the live webcasts.
Why do you think that they instituted "Free Speech Zones"? Unfortunately, "Free Speech Zones" weren't instituted by the Bush administration. That started during the Clinton years, way back in 1993, I believe.
"Now I'm looking at a full page of posts detailing how to infringe on these distribution rights.
Is this a major flip-flop or are these posters different from the usual crowd around here?"
Nope they just have bought into the idea that the games are for all and that NBC coverage is a poor substitue compared to other outlets. Their chant of justification is mostly "Don't fence me in." See when American sites or stores do this to outsiders they laugh but now that the shoe is on their foot they want to kick something.
Then there are those who just don't care about the Olympics. Finally there are those who echo that last sentiment but will be watching good ol Bob Costas do his bits.
In other news... ;)
:) ;)
The Olympic Games are off-limits to those wearing clothing clearly sporting logos or slogans of companies who are direct competitors of companies sponsoring The Olympic Games.
This is a measure mostly aimed towards preventing a group of people wearing shirts that would spell out a company name which would be clearly visible in any televised broadcast, but e.g. a cap sporting Pepsi, when Coca~Cola is the sponsor, would be forbidden as well. Or vice-versa, can't say I care which one's sponsoring
In additional news, athletes are once again told not to write about the olympics online. This is the same measure taken last time around in Australia - though not enforced too strictly.
And in entirely unrelated news, but on a level of "Boohoo - us poor Americans"
Boohoo, us poor rest-of-the-worlders - we can't bid on Google IPO stock
Global company - global search engine - Americans First (Only?)
How can we view the Olympics online aside from waiting for it to pop up on suprnova? I really would like to know because if enough people are pissed at this, I'd love to have a solution to give them.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I mean, really, who cares.
Most geeks know about proxies but your average user doesn't have a clue. Tell your friends.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Would it be possible to start a "Do Not Monopolize the Olympic Coverage and Stream it Realtime onto the Internet" Registry?
I think it would be possible to get atleast 100 million signers.
Why bother watching it in the first place? It's become so commercial that the athletic spirit it's supposed to embody seems to have been lost to an orgy of advertising and product endorsements (for the people who win the medals). Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather play UT 2004 than sit through the olypics.
Jim Lynch
Tech Analyst and Community Manager
That started during the Clinton years, way back in 1993, I believe.
FSZ's were enacted by Homeland Security in conjunction with the Secret Service. They started after 9/11 for "security" reasons. Areas are always tucked away somewhere remote and reporters are prevented from covering them.
To be fair Kerry had one of these at the Fleet center to coral pro-Bush supporters. Oddly, the huge conservative media machine never complained about lack of access to these until then.
Here here. I fence and want to see the fencing matches. If they even show them on American TV, it will probably be a half hour's worth at 3:30 in the morning.
And you're right on target about the Winter Skatelimpics.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
'live' means while it happens. The bulk of Olympic events will take place during daylight hours in Greece. That's middle of the night in North America.
Folks who work regular hours, have families, etc. will only be able to appreciate video from the Olympics well after the events are over.
Unless I'm missing something, those folks outnumber night shift workers, kids with nothing better to do, and (gasp) geeks who decide not to visit the 'big room' because it's too bright. And by a wide margin.
eskwayrd = m^2c^4
Story shows up on non US ip addresses.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
This article is about the 2000 Olympics. I wonder if that's the one we're talking about. Whatcha think?
I lived in Sydney for the games...
:D
Believe me after 2 weeks of 24x7 coverage... you were glad when the games were over....
I'm a sports nut normally, but there is a limit.
I really don't wanna watch every sport... Australia is going to be crazy enough with 2 of the 6 'free' channels offering 16 hours a day....
I want the 'Net to escape from it!
a bunch of geeks not watching sport on tv.
big thing. cnn here's a story.
joking aside. I am both into sports and geeky stuff.
but I also decided to boycott due to what the olympics have evolved into.
wrong direction.
there is no honor.
anyone else wanna join us?
Vspirit
I think /. may be wrong on this one. This article is about the 2000 Olympics.
Nice for you. I want more fencing coverage (summer) and Cross-Country Skiing (Winter).
Why?
Isn't it corporations who broadcast their privately-created content? Next.
> A corporation IS a 'person'.
A corporation has rights that can be abridged. If the rights of a person cannot be abridged lawfully under given circumstances, neither can the rights of a corporation, in the same circumstances. This is far from a declaration that a corporation is a human being.
It's the Olympics.
On Slashdot, anything that debunks corporate propaganda is a "Troll":
Starting Score: 1 point
Moderation -1
100% Troll
Extra 'Troll' Modifier 0 (Edit)
Karma-Bonus Modifier +1 (Edit)
Total Score: 1
No wonder they live under bridges - they don't have the EZPass to get across.
--
make install -not war
At the risk of sounding like an AOL'er -- ME TOO!!!!!
I'd love to see fencing. But if history is any guide, the 2AM broadcast will simply be a repeat of the primetime cast, showing some pre-teen girl running around a mat holding a ball (rhythmic gymnastics).
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
I found a sample of NBC's 2000 coverage. I suspect 2004 will be similar.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
It doesn't fucking matter who owns the airwaves. THE CORPORATIONS OWN THEIR CONTENT.
You can start up your own channel and broadcast your stuff all you want. Nothing's stopping you. But if someone owns the content to something else, it's not a free speech issue just because you can't violate their holding rights. It's an ownership issue. The government has nothing to do with it. Crying "so much for free press" just illustrates how very little you understand what free speech laws actually mean.
Get out of the anti-capitalist college dorm room you're living in and enter the real world sometime. It's not a free speech issue just because one company's channel can't broadcast another company's content.
I never said that a corporation is a human being. That would be silly.
But I would go to the extreme of saying that those who previously were state Citizens have exchanged their status for that of a corporation by declaring themselves to be 'U.S. citizens' and 'residents' of the state. And yes, under today's law a corporation is a 'person'. That's why the term is so popular amongst weasels; it helps them perpetrate all sorts of theft.
Can anyone at NBC say "ssh tunelling"?
Yes, but what percentage of the public can do that? 0.5% maybe? NBC just wants to make it hard for the great majority. I doubt they really care if a few geeks "cheat" on them.
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
but it's true.
p ic s/games.html
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/olym
It's not a myth when the person CREATING the modern games says that what they should represent.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I can't hear you!
"No you can't and most of it sucks anyway. "
with the net, you could cover it all.
They could also push advertising into the video.
Why can't they see this?
As for what sucks, that's a matter of opinion.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Read the article (use babelfish if you don't read Spanish).
It was invented in Berlin 1936 by the followers of Hitler
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
Where can I find a list of these proxies?
Fortunately CBC telecasts won't be blocked, so that's enough for me! I've never been a fan of NBC's coverage of the Olympics (and I doubt that will change anytime soon)
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) normally shows the Olympics without a delay. I know this television channel is often available in the United States, especially those near the Canadian border.
What about the sports NBC doesn't care about? They're only going to broadcast gymnastics, basketball, swimming, diving and track with an occasional bout of something else. So why shouldn't I be able to watch the other sports online? My sport is happens to be fencing, not exactly high on the food chain of American sport. Archery? Badminton? Handball? They typically won't broadcast their top sports live either. For the love of sports, they could broadcast live and then in prime time. It's not as if the country will wake up at 3am to watch gymnastics unless they're die hards, but somehow they have to keep it all a big secret until 8PM. There's something to this economic or psychological situation I'm not getting. I won't go on because writing this is making me more mad.
the olympics haven't been about competition and athletics for a long long time. its all about corporate sponsors and money. i'd much rather see track events for the records they can produce than some guy working to ensure product placement and his next round of endorsements.
athens is going to suck. vancouver is going to suck even HARDER. i didn't vote yes for it.
Once again during the Olympics CBC Radio service on the internet will be entirely pre-empted due to these restrictions. [cry]
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
My web domain.
Web sites must employ technology to block viewers from outside their home countries, so U.S. Web surfers won't benefit from the BBC's live coverage.
How will they assure that every country in the world will obey the blackout for the USA?
We talk about spammers just moving to another country if we outlaw spam here. Well, in that case most people dislike spam so it has an easy answer, block email from spamming countries.
But while spam is a push medium, this live coverage would be a pull medium. It is only people who want it that will be attempting to "illegally" view the live coverage. If they can't stop spammers, who we collectively want to block, how can they stop people who collectively want to view?
Not even the Great Firewall of China is able to prevent Chinese citizens from accessing subversive materials.
Proxies is the obvious answer but it might not even be neccessary.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
UK Residents pay the BBC Licence fee. We have every right to view the BBC's coverage (we've paid for it, after all)
Anyone outside the UK has been priviledged so far to have access to all the BBC's online resources FOR NOTHING.
So nobody outside the UK has any right to bitch about not seeing BBC coverage they did not contribute towards.
Come to think of it, Americans should think themselves lucky to be able to access bbc.co.uk at all, considering it's ad-free and they don't have to pay for it.
Although you could argue that it's in UK TV license payers interests to have a british world-view widely read around the world.
It was always about the money. Zeus was raking it in.
(Zeus is a little out of fashion right now but the spirit has been retained)
thankfully my hosting business has servers and offices in britian and germany.
So i get to watch either feed
Guess they didn't think of proxies.
Netherlands - NOS offers 4 channels of preprogramed content and 1 live feed.
UK - live video simulcast from television
Sweden - live video simulcast from television
USA - NBC offers only highlights
Sources: Wired, Paid Content, Kamera
...is the sound of jamming towers ringing in my ears?
The less people will care in the future.
I think it would take a terrorist attack to get people's interest back up and to get the damn networks actually interested in showing live coverage rather than recordings of the most popular events, and taped highlights of a half dozen others.
Okay, so the full comment is "The 100-meter dash and other cherished Olympic moments will for the first time be beamed to computers and mobile phones during the Athens Games.", but I seem to remember the Sydney Olympics in 2000 doing multicasts of Olympic activities.
Yes, you heard correctly, it was a huge technological experiment for us locally. Multicasts aren't very common in Australia. Overall, I think it worked out fairly well (although some ISPs didn't route the traffic).
Whilst it may also not have been exported international (I can't remember -- as I'm in Australia myself), neither is this -- so exactly how is this the first time?
In my opinion, the Olympics are something that should never have been allowed to have exclusive television rights, etc. As an event that's meant to unify the world, to limit things based on corporate monopolies is just plain self-defeating.
Andypoo.
Have a day's viewing of CNN, with enough self awareness to choke on their corporate spin: http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000781.asp .
--
make install -not war
> Now, I am not a libertarian, I am a liberal (and btw, we liberals have
> nothing against big business, just big business that breaks the law, ie.
> Microsoft or Enron).
>
> [...]
>
> But what business does, as long as they're not breaking any laws, is business.
What happens when "big business" gets to write the law?
the word proxy comes to mind.
-Tim Louden
This is hardly the end of the world for live Olympic viewers. I realise this is obvious, but the web's of course not the only way.
I recall during the last Olympics, at which NBC restricted viewing largely to taped events, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation observed a peculiar phenomenon: out of nowhere, they were popping up on American ratings charts. CBC Olympic coverage is, of course, live.
Americans who have access to international media will have access to live coverage. NBC can't take your TV signal away.
If it wasn't for that revolution, you'd be watching
it on Deuche Welle (if you're lucky).
You should go to China (where I'm spending the olympics).
CCTV5 has constant footage of events considered obscure in the west. Table-tennis, badminton, high-board diving, air pistol shooting, fencing, you name it.
Of course, it'll be predominantly chinese athletes involved, as those are the sports that China is typically strong at.
All I really care about is watching the mens 4*400 relay and the coxless pairs rowing.
Well, I guess there goes any chance of seeing more then a 15 sec clip of fencing once in a while:/.
The BBC are doing there first widescale deployment of multicast technology to stream the Olympics online to people in the UK. The main hope is, that delivering a prestige event in this way will 'encourage' ISPs to turn on multicast, so the BBC can use it regularly as a broadcast tool. Especially useful for them once their entire TV archive from the past few weeks goes online soon.
How is this any different than the Chinese filtering internet content for the sakeof their government? In this case, we're filtering internet content for the sake of one of our more powerful corporate entities. And we have "big government" how? The problem is that the U.S. government is not strong enough to prevent this kind of chicanery.
Un-news
...again
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
*I* pay the bills, monthly through my cable channel. If that's not enough to support the networks, I'd vastly prefer that they cut out ads and increase prices, giving me the option to simply pay or go without. That the ad companies hand money to the networks does not give them the moral high ground; they're not doing us any favors, they're leeching off of society. The advertisers vastly prefer the status quo, and are terrified of the day when they won't be given the chance to shove ads down the world's throat.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
The BBC is a state-owned broadcaster, operating under a charter that gives it a large amount of indepenedence. The BBC always has been more open about content access than commercial broadcasters. For example, the BBC is putting all their old TV shows on the Internet for viewing or download, on the basis the citizens have paid forthem and own them. You won't see such freedom of access from a commercial company. Americans ridicule the BBC state-owned model...yet over and over it has proven to be MORE independent and generally better all round provided the resources are there to provide a good service.
Only boring people are ever bored.
People have spoken.
Ratings for TV have been falling for a while.
Yes, the internet and video games are competition but mostly the viewing experience has degraded lately.
I've reported it for an Austrian newspaper on satrurday. There will be up to five events shown simultaneously! Athens is too hot, I'll stay in front of my PC...
www.weberseite.at
I can attest to this one. *wry grin* Unfortunately anyonmously since I've already moderated in this topic, but trust me. President Clinton made a whistlestop in Ashland, KY in 1996. I was with a group of Pro-Life protestors. When we showed up with signs, we were escorted by the secret service to the "designated protest area" which was a good 500 yards away from where the train was with a floodwall in between it and us.
Actually didn't Mr. Bush get like 1200 on
his SAT's? I wish people would stop
saying he's stupid or an idiot. Sure he
may have a speech inpediment but like millions
of other Americans he has found a way to succeed
regardless of that. Mr. Bush knows exactly
what he is doing. He is a very intelligent
man and it is his decision to disregard
the environment, squash scientific and medical
research, withhold basic human rights from
large subsects of the American population,
erode our constitutional liberties, and I also
believe (and have believed since the day he
was elected) that he ALWAYS had the intention
of invading Iraq. As for that often maligned
peice of legislation, the Patriot act...do
you really think that they really threw that
together all of a sudden as a result of
the terroist attacks in New York, Washington D.C.
and in Pennsylvania? Nope, they had that
ready and waiting for the opportunity to
introduce it and it would be likely to be passed.
Ask yourself...what were they waiting for.
Why did they introduce such a controversial
piece of legislation at the time of a national
crisus?
Bush knows exactly what he is doing.
I'm not going to stoop to calling him an
asshole or a jerk but I wonder why millions
of people are so fooled by this man. How
could a cretin fool so many people, to the
point they are willing to put their vote down
for him?
I did a little search on Google and found
m l
this page:
http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.ht
indeed, Bush scored a 1206. Higher than
many many of the people calling him an idiot's
scores.
I just get mad when someone who scores very
high on their testing or in school holds
their nose up and looks down on other people
and treat other people with irrelevance or
patronizes them. I am mad at the millions
of people who scored lower than Bush
who call him an idiot.
That said I hope people find more constructive
ways to criticize this man so we can get him
the heck out of the office of the President
of our United States.
This is slashdot. \. is Liberal, it leans to the left.
If the media source isn't conservative, panders to conservative ideas, and is overly hostile to anything non-conservative, it must be liberal!
No, they showed it! After a Sat practice, some members of my fencing team went to a BW3 and got them to turn a TV to CNBC.
:
They had highlights of Keeth Smart and Ivan Lee losing in the round of 16, and then showed the entire gold medal bout between Nemscik and Montano.
More fencing
Women's Individual Sabre Gold Medal Final -- Tues. Aug. 17 at 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.--Bravo--Coverage shared with Tennis (6-7 pm).
Men's Team Sabre Gold Medal Final -- Thurs. Aug. 19 at 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. --MSNBC--Coverage shared with Basketball (Argentina vs. China) 2-3 p.m. and Men's Archery final 3-4 p.m.
No foil or epee though, only sabre. They might show more if the men's team comes through, or one of the Jacobsen sisters medals.
darius
darius
Oddly, the huge conservative media machine never complained about lack of access to these until then.
Huge conservative media machine? What are you talking about. 99% of the media is extremely liberal. I can almost never find televised news that is of a conservative nature, similarly for newspapers. Most conservative media can be found in smalltown usa, and especially in christian conservative groups, but not mainstream.
My take on it is that American broadcasting of the Olympics sucks ass because NBC presents the Olympics rather than covering them. In other words, we are treated to edited clips of the most watched events and sappy "overcomming adversity" spots, with some clueless boob of a commentator who is convinced that they have to chatter their mouth off at all times.
Contrast that to, oh say, the coverage of the World Cup I saw a few years ago on BBC Canada (or maybe it was World, I'm not sure). Anyway, the commentators STFU most of the time unless they had something meaningful to say. Unfortunatly I haven't seen their coverage of the Olympics since the OC are a bunch of greedy bastards and sell monopolized access to the games.
A simple solution would be if they would auction off the Olympics not as a single package, but as events. So NBC would get track and field, but you could catch fencing, boxing or judo live on ESPN.
Hes' not fool, nor supid. He's evil.
bloody hell!
;o)
Do you really have to put up with that many adverts? Eight minutes in thirty?
Out of interest, are there any public service broadcasters on you side of the pond? I'm guessing ABC doesn't stand for American Broadcasting Corporation.
btw, BBC apparently stands for British Broadcorping Castration
It's no wonder that Americans are some of the most out of shape people in the world. Doing things like watching the worlds best altheletes compete in an international test of physical skill is the kind of thing that actually gets people out doing things like running around and working off the blubber and stiff muscles.