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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.
So what would happen if they held the olympics, and nobody showed up?
During one Olympics, the BBC world service news on the hour was replaced with the announcement:
"Due to rights restrictions we are unable to bring you this program".
I stopped listening to the BBC world service and stopped expressing any interest in the Olympics.
Whats the point in having a world news that you can't broadcast due to rights restrictions??
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
This affirms it. The sports aspect of the Olympics is secondary, even tertiary. The primary reason for the existence of the Olympics nowadays is to enrich those who organise it and those who use the media content for their profit.
Indeed. Last I checked, facts aren't copyrightable, trademarked, or otherwise protected by intellectual property rights (with the possible absurd exception of patented prime numbers), so if someone wants to report on the facts of the Olympics, such as the results or highlights, in their own words, they're entitled to do so. You can bluster and threaten as much as you want, but reporting on the facts is perfectly legal.
Kate Grace won the 800m Women's Final trial in a crazy finish a few weeks ago and became an Olympian for the first time. Her sponsor Oiselle posted pictures afterwards congratulating her on Instagram and their website. They were threatened by the US Olympic Committee to remove all posts and pictures of her, their own athlete. Needless to say they and her boyfriend were not happy about this. But since he was not a sponsor he re-posted the "offending" Instagram picture. After a while (and maybe some media backlash) they were allowed to post "compliant" pictures of her win. Effectively they had to censor out any logos relating to the US Olympic trials or Olympics.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This is true - but in the case of the Olympics, I'd rather that instead of reporting the facts of who's won what, they report the facts of Olympic corruption and how the Olympics does damage to the host country. And the ongoing cheating and doping.
Or show pictures of the sh#t floating in the Olympic rowing area. And the people who have been displaced. And how only the well-to-do will benefit from the new subway extension "for the Olympics." And the funding crisis for hospitals that can't treat patients because of a lack of basics such as gloves and syringes.
While we're at it, why not have a campaign to nominate #ZikaMosquitoes as the official Olympics 2016 animal?
Only a bunch of pinheads would get excited about the actual Olympics. Maybe the IOC is secretly hoping to spread Zika to create more pinheads? #OlympicZikaConspiracy :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.