Slashdot Mirror
Businesses To Be Censored on Use of Olympics
pitpe writes "The BBC reports that the proposed London 2012 Olympics Bill bans the use of words related to the Olympics by non-sponsors, including 'Olympic', '2012', 'gold', 'summer' and 'games', amongst others. The bill is aimed at
ensuring corporate sponsors, who have provided £790m of the IOC's £2.25bn marketing revenue over the last four years, will not be deterred by 'ambush marketing' where rivals to the official sponsors try to take advantage, but businesses warn it could make it technically illegal for pubs to use chalkboards to flag up coverage of the Games." From the article: "The London 2012 website has already posted a warning listing a string of Olympic-related words and images that are off limits to all but official sponsors. And advertisers' representatives have criticised the new Olympics bill because they believe it will make it almost impossible for most companies to even acknowledge that the Games are happening without getting into trouble. "
Prime Minister Tony Blair passionately, though unintelligibly, defended the controversial law, saying that "t[h]e I[O]C s [h]ave [it] [q]uite cl[ea]r that [o]ur role [is] [t]o def[en]d the i[n]ve[stm]en[t]s of [l]egiti[mat]e [adve]rti[s]er[s]" who have signed on with the IOC.
Blair also pointed to the limited timeframe of the bill, which only allows surveillance during a two-year period before and after the bill, and said that this showed that public opinion had been considered strongly during the formulation period. "[Wh]at m[or]e [d]o th[ey] wa[nt]?" he asked rhetorically
Free Software Foundation founder and figurehead Richard M. Stallman was unavailable comment. A source close to the activist said that "he's working on renaming GCC in Cyrillic".
Carousel is a lie!
...will begin sometime between 2011 and 2013.
They won't allow The Olympic Hopefuls to use Olympic in their name either. It's amazing that this crap was written in to law. Now the band has to change to "The Hopefuls".
Seriously, I love how they were given powers over a word that was around LONG before "The Games" were.
What a bunch of shit.
That would be hard on a lot of businesses... Calendar makers, for instance :-)
Does this extend to mean that only the sponsoring news organizations can report on olympic news. Sounds tricky.
And the word summer NEVER comes up in normal conversation. Nor does the word 2012 come up either...
I can see it now
Tom: "Hey, I can't wait till the summer of 2012 becau--"
Trademark Police: "Stop right there, infringer!"
Tom: "I didn't do anything wrong!"
Trademark Police: "According to this law you did. Those words are trademarked."
Tom: "How the hell did they trademark a year and a season?!"
Pitiful
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Thank heavens the 1st Amendment prohibits this type of corporate welfare in the USA.
Yeah? If by "engaging in the unauthorised use of the Olympic Marks" you mean by using them at all, how about you respect the people, and not make such fuchking unreasoanble demands in the first place?
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
The IOC has always been very vigorous in defending the branding rights to the games. They even tried to get the Special Olympics to change before the public backlash made them decide to change their minds.
Think about it. If you're Coca-Cola (or some other huge multinational) that's spending 8-9 figures to be the "official whatever of the Olympics", you're going to want to be pretty sure that your competitor isn't going to just say the same thing unofficially. Pretty sure in this case means contractual language with teeth. Hence, the IOC turning around and doing the same thing.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I wish i had the funds to start a true olympic games. A nice non-profit event. Maybe even center ed around the athletes. What we have currently just hurts my head. Spectators aren't allowed to drink the wrong drink or wear a shirt with a non-sponser on it. I feel kinda sick.
See 36 USC 220506... the US has had the same law for a long time. The Olympic commitee has even tried to be quite heavy-handed about it, on more than one occasion.
So established businesses in London, who have contributed tax dollars for years to the city do not get to benefit from the event being there. The whole reason to have the games in London is so that the IOC can profit? Are businesses that do not sponsor the Olympics banned from doing business with people who show up for the games?
It won't be long until athletes are winning bronze, silver and gold coke cans.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
When the Olympics were in Atlanta back in 1996, the press (much of it foreign) lambasted the U.S. and ACOG (Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games) for all of the corporate advertising. London will be no different as far as the omnipresent billboards, electronic displays, banners, etc.
Official sponsors of the Super Bowl get to actually use the words "Super Bowl" in their ads or on their packaging. Everyone else who wants to sell TVs or potato chips or beer for the game usually use the phrase "the big game" since they can't use the SB word...
"This? I can make a hat, I can make a brooch, I can make a pterodactyl..."
An ungodly heap of money trumps your rights.
An ungodly heap of money trumps common sense.
Come to thing of it,
an ungodly heap of money trumps everything.
Why are you so surprised?
'But the new bill will make it illegal to combine words like "games", "medals", "gold", "2012", "sponsor" or "summer" in any form of advertising.'
Where the hell do they get off selling "Summer 2012" to some multinational corporation like the IOC? Those are English words, and this is England. Isn't this kind of thing the reason the English keep the Queen around? Isn't it "the Queen's English"? Is she getting some kind of kickback, which requires her to sell out her subjects? Get Elizabeth in here, Slashdot wants to talk with her.
--
make install -not war
How about we just cut the crap and stop trying to stop people from simply living. This is common sense; why are we letting corporate sponsors yet again judge where we can use common words in every day life because they're deemed competitive or inapprpriate? I don't even mean the words like "summer" or "games". If I want to throw up a sign that celebrates the Olympics, I should be able to for whatever reason.
Maybe we can start a new trend of just selling our human rights for profit! Because right now they're just being stolen.
About a year back there was something like this going on in Vancouver, with alot of controversy. There was a man who owned a restaurant called "The Olympic" or something along those lines. The restaurant was around for 30+ years, and yet he still had to change the name of it. Although I understand the basis for these sorts of laws, sometimes it is a bit extreme. It should be restricted to some LOGICAL extent.
The international athletic event that takes place where city officials are willing to provide the biggest bribes to the committee is now in London.
or
The international athletic event where people from all countries use performance-enhancing drugs is now in London (and no it's not the Tour de France).
"And advertisers' representatives have criticised the new Olympics bill because they believe it will make it almost impossible for most companies to even acknowledge that the Games are happening without getting into trouble."
Good. It's time to kill of the olympics.
A event like this only means something when the organization running it isn't corrupt from top to bottom. They have the nerve to tell ticket holders that "You can't drink Dr. Pepper here, but you can buy a $20 can of Coke! Coke is it!". The "Olympic Village" is now corporate-sponsored Sodom and Gomorrah. Home improvement companies spend millions on advertisements to say that they are proud to support their olympians ("You've got no marketable skills outside of athletics, so as long as you work 9-to-5 for minimum wage, we've got your back!").... I'm absolutley not surprised to see London sell themselves out by grabbing the Olympic bid.
Now, if nobody CAN mention the Olympics, perhaps they'll just go away. We'll all be better off for it.
A large number of the pubs are owned by breweries in the UK. Only the pubs owned by the sponsor, or free houses not beholden to a chain, could use this approach.
I've always loved the Olympics, I remember looking forward to them even as a child, but this type of crap is quickly making me lose all interest in them. I used to tape what aired while I was at work (or school in the past) so I could watch all the coverage, last Olympics I didn't tape a thing. I didn't watch as much either and the whole Death Grip on Advertising (tm) wasn't quite as bad as this sounds.
So congrats to the IOC and their over-zealous "official" sponsors. It's not just anyone that can completely destroy something as special as the Olympics once were. Oh and just a tip for those official sponsors -- I don't tend to buy products from companies who encourage this type of behaivor, even if you are supporting the Olympics, so you might want to rethink your marketing strategies.
... our time traveling friend John Titor said there won't be Olympics after 2004 (dunno if this counts for the '06 winter olympics or not) due to too much conflict over the entire thing. It isn't until 2036 until they try and start it all back up again. I can't wait for this civil war to start, I'm gonna quit my job and head to the hills. I've learned to embrace his prophecy and understand the true meaning of life thanks to Titor.
For those who don't know about John Titor
P.S. Anyone know where I can find that video of him traveling time in his car when he goes BACK TO THE FUTURE?
Sig: I stole this sig.
Canada is doing the same think. A local business in Vancouver, around for a decade (and long before the games were coming near here) was attacked by the olympic committee over having the olympic rings logo over the"Olympic Pizza" restaurant.
It's big-business greed at it's very best, especially since the coming of the olympics will ensure that the Whistler skihill will be inaccessible to anybody but the rich, as the cost of attending the olympics is beyond many average folk, and the rates in the area are already skyrocketing in anticipation of the games.
Olympics were around long before trademarks, and used to be for the people... now they're only for big-business and rich people, go figure.
I haven't been interested in the games since about 1984. I can't imagine a reason for wanting to attend in person. Overpriced tickets, hotels, food, everything. It would take two or three years of normal "vacation" budget to go to just part of an olymic games. They have become the "Jurassic Park" of enntertainment - they can charge anything they want, and do. And they don't even have a coupon day.
I'd like to see everyone just ignore them. Unless I hear that the Swedish platform diver loses her bathing suit top and its caught on the underwater film camera, I doubt I'll even be interested much in the results, much less the actual telecast. (btw - that happened in 1984, and the vcr happened to be running. For a lad at the tender age of 15, it was a good reason to watch the olympics.)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Wake up. It's England.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
The USA has had similar laws with respect to the Olympics for some time now.
Not just trademark law, but a special statute protects the Olympic trademarks.
See INTA for more info about this, and of course, the text of 36 USC 220506 itself.
Basically, the USOC owns these words and symbols exclusively, by Act of Congress. The UK is merely "harmonizing" with the USA.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Think about it. Stores all over the country will have signs saying things like: "Get The Goods on a Barely Legal Date!", "Banned Substances at Discount Prices!" and "We Can't Say What We're Selling, but Come In And Get Some!"
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
seriously,
with the olympics becoming more and more like a professional sport with the advertising, lucrative contracts and shit, i am getting more and more turned off to it.
If a country wants to host the olympics, the requirement should be that it have ZERO corporate logo's anywhere on the properties of the stadiums. and that news stations can get equal coverage of the games.
Or better yet, LOTTERY off coverage of games. So that i dont have to flip through 12 channles of figure skating or gymnastics. I would like to check out some of the other sports--outside of what the news feeds think will get the best coverage.
grrrr
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
Wake up. It's the UK.
England's merely a region within the country known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It used to be a country in its own right, but that was hundreds of years ago.
This bill is being proposed in Parliament, which makes law that applies to the whole of the UK, not just England.
Oh, and the UK is part of Europe, just in case there's any misconception there. Us Brits have got into the habit of referring to continental Europe as "Europe", so sometimes it sounds like we aren't part of Europe, but that isn't the case.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Let's be honest - that's not difficult, is it? :)
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
The posters were only on campus, but the AOC threatened legal action over them.
Stupid thing is that the official advertisers would have only benefitted as by having more people watching the telecasts, more people would have been exposed to the advertising...
Somewhat over the top, IMO.
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.
Australia did the same thing for the 2000 Olympics. Existing businesses were not forced to change their name though. (Or perhaps the only place I knew of that had 'olympic' in it was too small to worry about.)
Ooh, will you pay my legal bills when I release Microsoft Windows Longhorns and claim that trademark law is unconstitutional?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
My plans for www.2012olympicgold.xxx are now officially on hold
5 38243&tid=153&tid=95&tid=103&tid=219
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/16/1
So where did the other 2.25bn - 790m = 1.46b come from? I'm guessing from country contributions which came from their taxpayers.
So do the taxpayors of these countries get to use all of these words too?
What will European kids call what they play?
XBOX.
Blackadder: "Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?"
Baldrick: "Yeah! It's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron."
He who has the gold, makes the rules.
BTW, At current exchange rates, this rule was bought at a price of 108 standard tons of gold. I was hoping to see how many Libraries of Congress that would fill, but that's only 181 cu. ft. Kinda disappointing really.
Note that the OP seems to be a follower of the new theory of Intelligent Climate Control, which has been gaining ground in replacing the obsolete and largely discredited hypothesis that seasonal climate changes are caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation, which causes one of the two hemispheres to be exposed to more sunlight, depending on the Earth's position in its orbit around the Sun.
Intelligent Climate Control states that the movement of celestial bodies is too complicated to understand through the laws of physics, and therefore climate changes must be the result of arbitrary control by a higher being.
sic transit gloria mundi
It's called Cockney Rhyming Slang. eg. Tea-Leaf = Thief Dog-And-Bone = Phone Stuffy-Pricks = Olympics (I made that one up...can you tell?)
parent doubleletter ungood indic possible twitch possible crimethink, reread antecomment.
(Remember: Any deviation, no matter how slight, may indicate a thought criminal. I'm not a petty grammar Nazi, I'm watching your back!)
"Coke"®, "Coca-Cola"®, "The Real Thing"©, "Always"©, "It"©, "Christmas"©, "Summer"©, "The Olympics"© and most other words are owned by the Coca-Cola® Corporation. #246624
About a decade ago, when the Olypics were in the US, there was a pizza delivery business in the same city as the games. It was named "Olypic Pizza".
The olypic games' sponsorship branch sued the pants off the small-business owner, to get him to change the name of his business. Eventually he had to relent, after the legal fees nearly bankrupted him.
Why did he fight it? Simple. The store was NAMED AFTER HIM, and he had been in business WITH A TRADEMARK ON "OLYPIC PIZZA" FOR OVER 10 YEARS!
So because the olypic sponsors didn't to eal with the "ambush advertising" this guy represented, he had to give up the business name he had in the area FIRST, his trademark, and couldn't even use his full name during local interviews.
Screw the olympics, and boycott every single damn company that sponsors them!
The London 2012 Olympic organisation has released this template for all companies that have not obtained a sponsorship deal.
Example only:
(Black screen)
(each line of text fades in to white while the line is being read)
Voiceover: "You know why you are here,
We know why you are here,
We cannot say why you are here,
While you are here,
Eat at Hungry Jacks."
(fade in corporate logo)
(fade to black)
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
LOMDON (AP) - A consortium of corporate sponsors today announced the Olympic Letter Management (OLM) initiative to enact mandatory technological measures to prevent uncontrolled use of alphabetic characters to steal valueable Intellectual Property.
"It's outrageuous!" exclaimed OLM spokesperson Bert Kneecapper, "After TrendySportingShoe(TM) spends billions buying Olympic (TM) naming rights, some thieving punk can steal our trademarks using a 20c crayon bought from any corner store!"
Under the OLM initiative, and device capable of reproducing alphabetic characters must implement a mechanism to honour the OLM Tradkemark flag, thereby preventing the device from reproducing trademarked sequences unless a valid licence exists. With time, they intend the service to extend to the enforcement of other text controls, such as micro-payments for use of famous quotes, and retrospective editing of history books.
Bert Kneecapper went on reject crayon manufacturer representations that the scheme was impractical, "Our members lose billions of dollars in un-earned revenue, how can they justify 20c crayons in the face of such flagerant theft?".
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Where's your Olympic* spirit my friend?
* (c), (R), Patent Pending, void where prohibited by law. "Olympic" is a registered trademark of the International Olympic Comittee. All materials and content related to the Olympic Games, including, but not limited to, images, illustrations, text, audio clips, and video clips, are protected by or consist of copyrights, trademarks, service marks, and/or other intellectual property rights ("Intellectual Property"). The Intellectual Property is governed and protected by United States and worldwide copyright, trademark, and/or other intellectual property laws and treaty provisions, privacy and publicity laws, and communications regulations and statutes. The Intellectual Property is owned or controlled by us or other parties that have licensed to us the right to use their Intellectual Property or the right to market their products and/or services (collectively the "IP Providers").
You agree to abide by all additional copyright notices, information, or restrictions contained in any material or content on the Site. Other than as may be expressly permitted by us, in writing, (i) the Intellectual Property is provided solely for your personal, non-commercial use; and you may download any Intellectual Property solely for your personal, non-commercial use, consistent with these Terms, provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained in such Intellectual Property. You may not copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute, and/or exploit any Intellectual Property in any way (including by e-mail or other electronic means) without our prior written consent or that of the IP Providers - particularly the words 'Olympic', 'games', 'gold', 'silver', 'bronze', 'doping scandal', 'bribery', and other words that are implicit in the Olympic Games. Modification of any Intellectual Property or use of any Intellectual Property for any other purpose is a violation of the copyrights, trademark rights, and other proprietary rights; that includes photoshopped naughty images of Jacques Rogge. The use of any Intellectual Property on any other site or networked computer environment, or maintaining unauthorized links to the Site, is prohibited by these Terms.
When you consider that Australia (the city of Melbourne, Australia strictly speaking), has the highest population of Greek folks of any city in the world outside of Greece (and Sydney isn't too far behind) then you can bet your bottom dollar that there's going to be a fair swag of small "Mom-and-Pop" businesses, corner stores, etc with some form of 'Olypic' in the name.
Our newspapers regularly carried stories of small businesses being steamrollered by IOC Corporation and its hired thugs (by hired thugs, I mean the government of the host country).
Another common story was the officials and security being briefed to look out for spectators and general public wearing promotional gear (hats, t-shirts, etc) from companies that competed with official sponsors. A coca cola t-shirt for example would leave you being offered the choice of handing it over, covering up, or going home.
Despite all the talk of leaving town for the duration, etc, etc, I did end up sticking around (but I didn't get involved in any of the events organised by IOC Corporation). Strangely, Sydney was a really really nice place to be for those two weeks. Many people dreaded the five ringed circus coming to town, but by the time they packed up their tents and their wagons and rolled out of town again, many of the same were sad to see them go.
That ain't no excuse for steam rollering thousands of little people in the name of corporate greed though. IOC Corporation has NOTHING to do with sport, excellence, peace, tradition or ANY of that nice stuff - it's about corporations and hired governments pumping the people for money.
Me, I make careful note of the companies that sponsor IOC Corporation, and put them on my personal do not buy list for life.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
No doubt. The way the Olympics have been run in recent memory is sad. They guard anything that has to do with the olympics so closely, any spirit of friendly compitition has been lost.
I remember a few years ago, atheletes weren't able to keep and publish an online journal about their experiences, so fans could get an unspoiled perspective of what the atheletes saw. That's bordering on insane.
To make matters worse, television coverage of the games is miserable. In an hour of coverage, you'll get 15 minutes of commericals, 25 minutes of sappy "human interest" stories (This is young Nadia's first olympic games *cue heart strings music* she had to face a lot of challenges to get here, because just two years before the games, her belowed cat Mittens died from old age), 10 minutes of "what you'll see later on" and mindless chatter of the comentators ("You know, Bob, the sun that comes out over Athens during the day is the exact same sun that shines over America." "No, I didn't know that. That's so fascinating, especially since America is so far away", and a whopping 10 minutes of actual coverage of atheletic compitition.
I'm not kidding.
Essentially, the commericalism of the games have robbed it of its soul, and America's TV coverage has made it unwatchable. And forget about trying to enjoy the opening ceremonies; the commentators must be paid by the word, because they don't know when the shut up.
The Internet is generally stupid
It's a proposed law. There's lots of opportunities for it to be thoroughly mauled before it gets into the statute books.
The olympics are supposed to be not-for-profit. I've been sitting here trying to think of an orginization, for-profit or otherwise that's worse then the Olympics, and am comming up blank.
Even the RIAA (the orginization we all love to hate) isn't as bad. If IOC members ran the RIAA, they'd file injunctinos against financial institutions for using "CD" as an acronym for certificates of deposit.
As I said elsewhere on this discussion, the only single group I can point at as being worse is the Church of Scientology. When being measured in things like lack of ethics and greed, and you end up somewhere between the RIAA and the CoS, that doesn't say a good thing.
The Internet is generally stupid
LONDON (Reuters) - In a press release, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) today announced its intention to pursue legal action against Robert Louis Stevenson, over his poem Summer Sun, for two "illicit" uses of the word "golden", and one of the word "summer".
Stevenson, being long dead, declined to respond. However, visitors to his grave on Mount Vaea on Upolu, Samoa, have reported hearing a grinding sound from underground, as of something rotating in the dirt.
- Peter Ravn Rasmussen
I was cheering for Paris all the way through the selection process.
As a result of London winning the olympics, my council tax is going to go up. I have to pay more each month for the next several years, to make the IOC richer. What did I do wrong ? I simply picked the wrong place to live.
Apparantly about 300 businesses are being forced off their land for this circus as well, and the potential job losses look to number around 20,000 at the moment. This is 20,000 local people who will be out of work so that some people can run around in circles.
Is the "Queen's English" an American expression? Can anybody give me the root of where this phrase came from? In the UK I'm more aware of people talking about "BBC English" (but this is as much to do with pronunciation).
Oh, for shame...
- Peter Ravn Rasmussen
"I guess we won't be having a Summer in 2012" No different from any other year in the UK then.
This is exactly what happened in the last Olympics and the one before that, this is basically what the Olympics is about. As a Londoner I say go with it - Im not going to bother watching any of that bullshit, but if it means we can fleece stupid tourists out of their money and can all get something out of this for free (more transport systems etc) then go for it! You just have to remember that the Olympics is a bastardised version of some ancient Greek custom and its sole purpose is to make wonga. As far as im concerned, sponsors can have their advertising and businesses can make their profit as long as the general population is not going to be hampered by this, the locals are the most important people here.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
How can the olympics be trademarked when the term was originated a couple thousand years ago in Greece? Sure, they can trademark the interlocking circle glyph, but the word?
And in news just in, Mount Olympus has been summonsed to appear in court in London for breach of the 2012 Olympic Corporation's trademark.
And not Marathon as I still miss.
Damn you Mars!
I hope Heineken make an 'illegal' NOT THE OLYMPICS can of lager.
Like they did with the Pint can of Lager 'contravenes some daft euro law!!'
Great, more British than British!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com