Slashdot Mirror
Posting Photos of Olympics Could Land You In Court
hypnosec writes "With London's summer 2012 games due to take place in the very near future, you'd think that organizers would make more of an effort and persuade people to show more of an interest — yet it appears the complete opposite has happened, with strict guidelines banning athletes from posting photos of themselves on Twitter with products that aren't official Olympics sponsors, as well as prohibiting videos or photos to be taken from the athlete's village. Oh and just for good measure, fans could find themselves barred from sharing videos and photos on Facebook and YouTube of themselves delighting in said Olympics action."
reason not to watch the Olympics
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and goodwill...
Thank you for hosting the Olympics, now please cower in fear of the copyright police.
I appreciate the Olympics, but I'm not giving up my rights just because my country is hosting them.
No thanks.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
fuck the olympics. It's become exactly what it isn't supposed to be: a corporate circle-jerk to exploit potential for advertising revenue. The athletes come second, if they are lucky.
...was bullshit. That can't be right. Then I RTFA. Holy shit! Way to go London - bring that Orwellian dream to life!
I'd love to see them try to actually take someone to court over this.
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!@#$ you. No Really. !@#$ you.
An event dedicated to showcasing the heights of human athleticism, and you've turned it into a cheap money making operation for yourself. You Suck. I will not be watching the olympics.
All your images are owned by us. God, I love the Corporatocracy.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Are they completely ignorant of the ubiquity of cameras today? Forget the fact that most of those cameras are attached to something that can easily upload images to the world at large.
This deserves a flash-mob style constant bombardment of images from the Olympics being uploaded during the games. Even if we get bored to tears of the sheer volume of Olympics photos uploaded, just overwhelm them with the obviousness of their own stupidity.
Does anyone even care about the Olympics anymore?
Can we all just agree it's 1999 again, and have a "do over"?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm an American. In order to attend the Olympics, I have to be stripped naked and groped in order to get on the airplane. Anything I do during this procedure that is not ordered by the goon squad is likely to have me arrested, where I can be strip searched again in Jail.
When and if I get on a plane, anything of value in my luggage, such as ipods, cameras, and laptops are likely to be stolen by the baggage handlers, who are not searched and groped by the TSA, apparently.
When and if I land in London, I'm likely to be searched again, what for, who the hell knows, but apparently it's standard procedure. At this point, I discover I've been robbed, but there's no way to file a claim, and yelling about it is just likely to get me arrested.
And when I attend the games, I'm going to be sued for using my eyes and brain as a copyright infringement device, assuming I haven't shelled out for a new camera to replace the one that's stolen. And I would have to post the pictures to the internet, because I can't keep them in the flashcard of the camera, because that will be stolen on the return trip (or confiscated by customs).
Yeah, let me see... Nope, I don't think I will be attending the games, or even watching on TV. Because who knows, they might sue me for watching it on TV. It's going to happen sooner or later, who wants to be the first test case?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Welcome to America . . wait . . .
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
Does the IOC maintain a list of the "Official ____ of the Olympics" products?
I want to be on the winning team and buy all of the products that our fine athletes will be pimping non-stop between now and the next Olympics.
Specifically, I need to know which companies they have chosen for the "official" toilet paper, ball-point pen, aerosol cheese product and galvanized roofing nails.
TIA!
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
This doesn’t surprise me based on how over-controlling the International Olympic Committee is. For instance, I used to work for a finance company that had the word “Olympic” in it. Their Lawyers threatened the company, so they had to change it to “Arcadia”. You can not use the word “Olympic” in anything due to their trademark on the word. I have even seen a couple business signs with the word “Olympic” painted over with another name. Before then, I was under the silly impression that the word “Olympic” wasn’t anyone’s property. They will come after you at night wearing togas and carrying torches.
London 2012 is going to be a farcical affair for start to finish. London traffic is already heavily congested without a major event taking place. With London 2012, its going to be nearly impossible to get around the Capital without getting stuck, stuck, stuck everywhere. Then, there's going to be a ridiculous amount of security all over the Olympics. Thousands of policemen. Helicopters in the sky. Boats out on the Thames. B-sniffing dogs. Biometric (face-recognizing) CCTV cameras anywhere. Then there's the hullaballoo about taking pictures. London 2012 security has been harrassing anyone who takes pictures of Olympics facilities, even from a far distance away (like a Kilometer or Mile), and from public land. Now there's this whole nonsense about only official Olympic sponsors being able to reference the 2012 Olympics, Olympic athletes being banned from tweeting or commenting about the competitions, people watching the Olympics not being allowed to share pictures or videos online. The whole thing is a big, stinking mess before it has even started. Good luck, London. With organizers like these, you'll need it.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
They occasionally try to sue business with "Olympic" in their name. It has happened several times here in Washington State, where we have a large chunk of the state called the "Olympic Peninsula", and thus a lot of businesses with "Olympic" in their name. A few years ago they tried to tell some dry cleaner out in Port Angeles (in the Olympic Peninsula) that they could not call themselves the "Olympic Cleaners".
Fuck 'em.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It's a well known (documented) that the London bid team gave bribes to the IoC to win the bid. Strange how not one person from the IoC or the London politicians are in prison. Better throw people in courts for photographing, that'll show those pesky taxpayers who footed the £10bn ($15bn) and rising bill.
Just to add some detail to the "London" Olympics, the BBC has gutted their sports presentation for this event. They've lost half the Formula One coverage (with it going completely on contract end), and recently horse racing, and other sports too just to pay for the Olympics coverage. So while people wonder why for the next few years there will be no sports to watch on the BBC, they can reminisce on the 20-ish days of political jerk-off "sport" they didn't watch for the Olympics.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
What sounds completely insane to me is that UK actually had to create special new laws regarding copyright etc in the context of the Olympics for the benefit of IOC here. Do countries really value their sovereignty so little?
The what games?
I have watched the games ever since 1992 (Barcelona?). Back then I setup a VCR to tape everything and watch it the next day, because I was on night shift. Now I use an analog DVR (replayTV).
The Olympics are the only form of sport I ever watch, because there's lots of variety, and these are the world's best athletes. Could care less about football, baseball, et cetera. So once every 2 years I watch sports.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
TFA:
"In 2006, accordingly, parliament passed the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act, which, together with the Olympic Symbol (Protection) Act of 1995, offers a special level of protection to the Games and their sponsors over and above that already promised by existing copyright or contract law. A breach of these acts will not only give rise to a civil grievance, but is a criminal offence."
A man was convicted of a minor offence for refusing to obey a police instruction to leave a green space on which an olympic practice pitch was to be built. He was then served a further order banning him from going anywhere near anything connected with the Olympics.
"The asbo, which will be either confirmed or overturned by magistrates at the start of May, prohibits Moore from going within 100 yards of any Olympic-related venue, "route" or the home of participants, officials or spectators, or approaching any road where the Olympic torch will pass that day."
That means a pretty large area. Since he lives in London and cannot possibly know where the homes of all these numerous people are, it seems to mean that he can be arrested for leaving his house.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/17/protester-receives-olympic-asbo
Oh, they value their sovereignty, they're just monetizing it.
You're not one of those freedom hating socialists, are you?
It's in TFA:
"Britain already has a range of legal protections for brands and copyright holders, but the Olympic Games demand their own rules. Since the Sydney Games in 2000, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has required bidding governments to commit to introducing bespoke legislation to offer a further layer of legal sanction.
In 2006, accordingly, parliament passed the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act, which, together with the Olympic Symbol (Protection) Act of 1995, offers a special level of protection to the Games and their sponsors over and above that already promised by existing copyright or contract law. A breach of these acts will not only give rise to a civil grievance, but is a criminal offence."
So far as I can see from a brief glipse at the law in question, it basically amounts to giving police powers to directly enforce whatever rules IOC comes up to. This, in particular, looks like it allows the police to arrest you on the spot if you're wearing a T-shirt with a wrong logo or anything like that.
This reminds me of a recent Diamond Geezer post lampooning the new legal restrictions on the use of the words "London" and "2012":
He's only half-joking—the British Parliament really did pass a law, the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006, which effectively prohibits the use of these words in certain combinations, except by the Olympics organizing committee and its official sponsors.* According to LOCOG's own guidelines, the prohibited expressions are
*Technically, the only real crime is creating a false association between a business and the Olympics, regardless of what language is used, but the Act singles out a number of particular words and expressions for special consideration by the courts.
After reading the above, I was quite amused to see the BBC's cheery comment on Google+ that
The motto of the London Olympics has also been revealed: "Inspire a generation".
Of course, acting like fascists does tend to inspire people, just not usually in a way the fascists agree with...
Apathy Sucks, Nobody for President!
Funny how my memory of olympic games seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of commercialisation around them. I used to enjoy watching the olympics, but nowadays I'm hardly even aware they are being held. Is it this year, you say? And 4 years ago, was that China? I seem to remember a Slashdot article (probably completely illegal, by the way) about the Chinese seeding rain clouds to keep the stadium dry, that's about the only thing I remember.
Maybe the fact that publicity is so tightly regulated might have something to do with it. They seem to be actually reducing their audience in their envy of preventing any outsiders from making any money. Keeping non-authorised people from making money actually seems to be more important to them than making money themselves. Maybe somebody ought to tell them that that is not rational behaviour.