Slashdot Mirror
Olympians Banned From Blogging
nodwick writes "CNN reports that in a bid to protect its lucrative media contracts, the IOC is barring competitors, coaches, and support personnel from writing firsthand accounts of their Olympic experience, on the web or in print, for the duration of the Games. Nor are they allowed to ever post photographs or movies that they've taken, including media of themselves, even after the Games are finished. They've threatened to disqualify anyone that violates their restrictions and sue them for monetary damages. Looks like an effort to clamp down on grassroots, word-of-mouth publicity for the Olympics -- good thing they're not having any problems selling tickets anyways, eh?"
a lot of bloggers work for large companies, attened events or whatever but never give out personally identifying information.
Myself, I talk about work all the time but never use my real name or the company I work for. If you were clever you could work it out but - the company could never pin it on me. Anyway whos going to enforce this anyway
There is no god
Why on earth would you want to prevent these people from telling there stories? I know that some of the challenges they go through to get there and during the games, would be well worth sharing with others. Guess the Games have become about money too now.
"....that in a bid to protect its lucrative media contracts, the IOC is barring..."
...and i stopped reading. i'm not going to rant about the legacy of the games or this and that...i'm just going to say: keep 'em, keep the money, keep your coverage, keep the contracts and consider me disgusted.
They shouldn't be alowed to do this.
I know other parts of the world don't respect free speach as we 'try' to in the US but this is horrible.
The medal winners need to organize and have a blogathon. They can't disqualify everyone.
They IOC doesn't own the experiences of the athletes!!!! UGGGG
If I'm interested in a sport, I will want to see the full quality version. Sure, I'd love to read a blog or two, but what I'm really interested in is the event itself and I'll figure a way around M$NBC's stupid internet black out to get it.
If I were an athlete, I'd tell the IOC to shove it just as soon as my event was over and post whatever I wanted my family and friends to see.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Nor are they allowed to ever post photographs or movies that they've taken, including media of themselves, even after the Games are finished.
Huh? You take a picture of yourself, it's yours. This is pure threatening bullshit just said to try to scare them. They don't have a leg to stand on if some athlete, with their own camera, took photos of themselves at the game and then 6 months later they put them up on the web to say "look what I did with MY camera taking pictures of MY person".
It's not like a ton of cash is exchanging hands anyway. Anyone even watching the games?
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Well okay, so let's admit the IOC is sold to big media corps, which they are for various reasons involving money under the table no double, and they threaten to sue the hell out of olympians who post pictures and accounts. Let's say...
But disqualify them? under what rule? if someone wins an event fairly and his/her urine checks out, why would they be disqualified by this? is this a rule that was written that athletes agreed upon before? I bet it's not. And if it isn't, I wager olympians who already won something before this IOC statement could probably post something, because rules usually can't be made retroactive.
And at any rate, I'm quite sure athletes could challenge such a disqualification in court without too much trouble. But of course, they won't, because their goal is to win medals, not defend free speech, and also the last thing they need is to antagonize media monopolies, because a great part of their incomes come from airtime and grooming their public image.
So, way to go IOC. You fit just right in the current grand scheme of corrupt things. Not that I care greatly about what athlete have to say, they're usually fairly inane to listen to, but none the less they should have free speech like the rest of us.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
While I am not saying I completely agree with the IOC on this one, but they have the legal right to control all means of making money on this. If Mr. Phelps or some other big name Olympian had their own blog they could generate a lot of traffic. If they just happen to also have some advertising on it they could potentially make a lot of money reporting the Olympics. Most likely a 3rd party company would run the blog for the athlete so even more people are making money. This is all about money (whether that is a good thing or a bad thing) not the IOC trying to control the athletes thoughts.
All this will take to reverse is one gold medalist posting a bunch of photos and movies their parents took of them.
It doesn't matter what any court anywhere would say, they would be so pressured by public opinion over the matter that this wouldn't last.
Just imagine if they tried to not let them compete, or take away a medal or something.
Case closed.
Experiment!
Luckily, if you RTFA they say that existing personal websites are exempt, but even then you apparently cannot post pix or video. That's fucking bullshit. I would very much like to see somebody challenge this rule, but unfortunately I think they would be simply kicked out of the Olympics and left with no recourse. Who is the IOC accountable to? No one, except for member countries, I'd bet.
Really, this seems to be a sad attempt by the news media to protect their turf. It's so pathetic. My question is, what if an athlete is also an accredited journalist in real life. Does the IOC grant them permission to post on their website? Obviously big money trumps free speech every time, though. I guess it's about time we just gave in and begged our corporate masters to be merciful. Fat lotta good that will do.
[/rant]
Electric Monkey Pants
Money: the best thing that could happen to civilisation, the worst thing that could happen to humanity.
You know who's pissed off? The Nepalese communist rebels. They've been blockading the capital Katmandu now for 2 days and no mention of it in the news. Even the 1.5 million people in the city don't find it amusing, and food prices are climbing steadily.
Of course, the 16 year old from texas who can jump gets the coverage.
I use my TV as a viewing device for my DVD player.
"Piter, too, is dead."
To protect lucrative broadcast contracts, athletes and other participants are also prohibited from posting any video, audio or still photos they take themselves, even after the games, unless they get permission ahead of time. (Photos taken by accredited journalists are allowed on the personal sites.)
First, I don't think this would hold up in court, especially if the photographs are being used on a non-commercial site. It's like saying, "Yes, we said you could take as many pictures as you want, but you just can't show them to anyone else or use them on any website."
What's the point of taking the pictures?!?
I could understand if they said that the pictures could not be used commercially - that statement could at least be supported by some semblance of an argument.
I could also *maybe* understand a blackout of photographic or video media until after the olympics are over.
This, though, is just wrong.
Try eMusic. DRM free, legal, MP3 downloads.
This is really, really stupid. What the IOC should have done is hand over blogging rights to one of their sponsors/networks (perhaps for free, this time, in the expectation of huge returns in future games when the value of blogging is more established) then setup up blogging facilities at said sponser/network's website and make the available to any atheletes who wish to make use of them. You could partition it by country, with nbc.com blogs for American atheletes, cbc.com blogs for Canadians, etc or put it all under one big site like Coke's.
No PR nightmare and a new revenue stream too!
Dumbasses!
The games are supposed to be about the atheletes. Well, no not really. The games are about Nike, Kodak, McDonalds, and NBC. Trouble is the athletes are whoring themselves for a metal and life-time bragging rights. Image the athletes giving the IOC the finger and doing what they wanted with their stories. For some reason the IOC thinks they own the athletes.
The modern games have never been anything else but a giant propaganda machine. Wich such niceties as the nazis hosting it, the boycotts by the americans and soviets and the munich masacre the games have even lost the pretence of being about anything more then sporters being paid by the state not to work.
When someone dies during the Tour de France it has been known that the entire group of cyclist let the team of the dead person win by driving over the finishing line together. Their at least there are more important things then winning.
How many sporters at the munich olympics made even 1 symbolic protest? Was any of them intrestted in anything else but winning?
Peace through sports? Not until we get rid of the sporters and those who measure the worth of their country through beating other countries.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Okay, the medias hype of phelps was rediculous. But he never asked for it. Where's this 'bad attitude?' where's this 'big mouth.' but i guess because you don't have corporate sponsership, every smile is unjust and portrays someones underlieing greed. man this guy is so cocky i bet he'd get '5 insightful' for bashing athletes online. Face it. The guy is good. He's more ore less the best in the world at what he does and I'd be happy if i was in his postion. I actually know a number of olympic swimmers on the Canadian team (many of them attend the university of british columbia) and i have yet to hear anything bad said about Phelps attitude.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
These professors, programmers and athletes get a small share of the value they create. Most of the value goes to those who have cleverly extended the "container" and claim the individual's achievement in the name of the container.
It is an error to attribute the individual's achievement to the container in which he works.
The IOC sued them for trademark infringement several years ago and most changed their names rather than bankrupt themselves fighting the IOC in court.
While IOC is definitely at fault here, a bigger problem is the US judicial system where the average person or small business can't defend themselves without risking bancrupcy.
What are you implying? That slashdot editors rushed to make a political statement concerning something innocent. I'm shocked.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
'Cause in a free society that's exactly what we need, government control of who reports the news. Oh, wait, we have that. It's called Fox.
Could I get sued even though I'm not there and I'm just making everything I write up?
Yes you will get sued. The plaintiff doesn't need to be 100% right to sue you, they just need to pay some lawyers to file the suit (OIC has lots of lawyers on staff). And in a country like USA, you will then have to take a lot of financial risk to fight the suit in court, and even if you win (I'd give you a 50-50 chance) you may still lose a lot of money. So when the letter comes, you will probably find it much more easy to just remove the blog.
The IOC was conceived, created and peopled by the "internationalists", the same bunch of supposed do-gooders who populate the bureacracy of the UN.
In other words, totalitarian minded scam artists out for some juicy graft. The first whiff of something that might negatively affect their little game, slam bam off come the gloves, baby. Kids in the Olympics have no rights and don't you forget it. Same as the UN, but more obvious and less damaging. At least nobody is getting starved to death or fed into a shredder for some faceless UN middleman's Oil-For-Food payoff cheque.
You want to see somebody scream? If you ever are unfortunate enough to meet an IOC creature, mention to them that you think it would be a good idea that the athletes should get a piece of the media money. They are the point of the whole affair and its pictures of them on the TV, shouldn't they get a piece of the action, after IOC expenses are covered? Hell no, of course not! It isn't about athletics, its about sleazy deals between scummy bureaucrats.
The kids competing are being taken for the biggest sleighride on Earth. Empty stadiums the whole first week shows I'm not the only one who thinks so.
And by the way, you can all thank God for those Eeeevile Corporations (TM) because they are the ONLY people who actually -pay- the kids for services rendered. Nike and Rebock et al have put many an otherwise pennyless jock through school and bought them a nice wee starter house and a second hand car when nobody else would give them a nickel. Sportswear companies look like Mother Teresa next to the frickin' IOC.
You corporation haters think about that one for a minute or two before you turn the flame thrower my way.
I know other parts of the world don't respect free speach as we 'try' to in the US but this is horrible.
You could have used another country as an example for the respect for freedom of speech and of press.
A current index places the US in place 17.
This never used to happen in the Canadian coverage, and it sickens me to see it happen now. But then you realize that there are weird non-linearities behind the scenes in what the IOC mandates, and in the cost structure, which has never been a strong point of Canadian television.
The entire Olympic movement sickens me. It's a bunch of ugly and corrupt old men and women to profit from the mechandising of beautiful young bodies with strict dress codes and turf boundaries.
The whole thing has become a giant pimpathon.
Tried to post this a few hours ago but they must have cut off my internet connection to stop me.
The Olympics are not about sport. They are about money and jingoism. The why of this rule coming into place is easy. As to how they can legally enforce silence on thousands of athletes whose own first hand accounts are far more interesting than the talking head commentary on "ennnnn bee see" is mostly due to how copyright laws have been twisted to the point where it would probably be better for the vast majority of us, who don't own TV stations, if there was no such thing as copyright.
The difference between news and entertainment blurred and now it is no surprise that the entertainment conglomerates tell the news organizations (mostly owned by those same conglomerates) that they have to pay to report the score of a football (or any other pro sport) game played in a stadium that taxpayers paid for.
Aside from a once or twice a year trip to Camden Yards to get a Boog's barbecue sandwich I really have no interest in Professional or College athletics because it has nothing to do with sport or competition and everything to do with making a ton of money by controling every aspect of perception of a publicly funded event.
The IOC, the MLB, the NBA, and NFL and all the others can keep their steroid chomping illiterate super-athletes because if I want to have fun I am gonna go play my own game until they sue me for kicking a ball around without a license.
The main problem with banning professionals would be defining just what a professional is. All those Russian hockey players who collect paychecks from the Army would be considered non-professional athletes, while their counterparts who are above board in how they make a living would be ineligible.
A level playing field for amateurs was a nice idea, but in many economic systems it was just far too easy to cheat by finding other ways to pay athletes. The only way to close the loophole was to let the more honest countries do the same.
I will say that I'm quite glad to see the old East German women's 4x200 relay record finally fall, and it seems the entire swimming world feels likewise, even if they would rather have done it themselves.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
To A) not have a job or B) own a dual tuner Tivo and have lots of free time. Because the average person who works 9 to 5 and finally settles into tv watching from say 7:30 to 10pm is seeing pretty much nothing but Swiming and Gymnastics. Prime Time Olympic coverage has pretty much sucked ass. I mean how much swimming and gymnastics can the average adult male watch? Sure rarely we've gotten to see other sports in prime time but for the most part its been nothing but the two sports listed above. The parent is right, going by what most people are seeing at night you'd think there are only like 3 sports in the Olympics. Oh and Bob Costas is realy annoying.
You can list all the program guides you like, it won't change the fact that US audiences are getting royally screwed by the coverage.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch