Olympics Committee Says Non-Sponsors Are Banned From Tweeting About the Olympics (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Gizmodo report:The U.S. Olympics Committee has gone off the deep end, when it comes to intellectual property. It's willing to sue anyone to protect their trademarks, even when the use is no real threat. But the committee's latest claim is an entirely new level of absurdity. What's getting the U.S. Olympics Committee in a tizzy this time? Tweets. Specifically any company that tweets about the Olympic Games and isn't a sponsor. ESPN obtained a letter from the U.S. Olympic Committee chief marketing officer Lisa Baird who outlines the absurd demands. "Commercial entities may not post about the Trials or Games on their corporate social media accounts," Baird writes, apparently in earnest. "This restriction includes the use of USOC's trademarks in hashtags such as #Rio2016 or #TeamUSA. And according to ESPN, it gets even more absurd. Apparently the letter says that any company whose primary mission isn't media is forbidden from using any pictures taken at the Olympics, sharing, and even reposting anything from the official Olympics account.

Comments

Not an idle threat

[sjbe]

You can bluster and threaten as much as you want, but reporting on the facts is perfectly legal.

That's true but the IOC and USOC don't care. They will sue you even if you did nothing illegal and I don't think this is an idle threat. They (mistakenly) think they are protecting their corporate sponsors by doing this. They sued Wizards of the Coast for using a symbol that could not possibly have been mistaken for the Olympic rings.

Re:Rhetorical...

[RevRagnarok]

Hey hey hey... it's "The Big Game" not "Super Bowl." Or the NFL will come after you the exact same way.