Olympics Trademark Law Insanity: Officials Can Enter Homes, Issue $10,000 Fines

from the please,-make-it-stop dept

In the past, we've noted how much the Olympics loves to overreach with trademark claims, trying to prevent anyone from using any phrase or word associated with the Olympics without having to pay up. Amazingly -- and to the detriment of the people they're supposed to represent -- politicians all too often grant the Olympics extra special trademark laws that just apply to them. Reader Jesse lets us know of the latest insanity up in Vancouver, where special new "bylaws" let officers enter homes to remove unapproved "signage" while also granting them the ability to issue fines up to $10,000. There are already lawsuits filed about this, but at what point do politicians tell the Olympics "enough is enough?" Update In the comments, reader Brendan points out that Vancouver's police chief is insisting this is an exaggeration, saying:

Just as ridiculous in my opinion, is the charge that the VPD will enter homes to confiscate signage.

Once again, I would ask that those speaking on our behalf, regardless of your motives, please stop, or at least ask us.

The additional powers that the City has obtained are intended to control unauthorized marketing.

If normal processes, such as a warning, ticket or summons, do not convince a person to abide by a by-law, in extreme circumstances, a warrant to enter premises can be obtained.

We have been assured by City license inspectors that they will be focusing on "guerrilla marketing" efforts that are prominent, and near official venues.

They will not be focusing on signage that is a political or personal statement.

The VPD has no intention of entering the home of any Vancouver resident for a sign issue during the Games. We are not the sign police.

Okay... but that still does say that they could get a warrant to enter people's homes for marketing signage. Why, exactly, should that be allowed? On personal property, if someone puts up a "guerilla marketing" sign, shouldn't that be their right?

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Olympics Clarifies Problems With Flickr Photos... But Still Doesn't Make Sense

from the you-don't-own-the-photos dept

Last week, we wrote about the International Olympic Committee's complaints concerning a guy, Richard Giles, who had posted some images he took at the Beijing Olympics on Flickr under a Creative Commons license. At the time, it wasn't entirely clear if the complaint was the license or that the photos were up, at all, but as we noted, either way, it didn't make sense. The IOC has responded and said the main complaint is with the Creative Commons license, but, again, it's difficult to see how the IOC has any argument at all. The photos were taken by Giles, and thus he has every right to license them as he sees fit -- including under CC licenses. Furthermore, as Thomas Hawk points out in the link above, once you license something CC, you can't go back on it. It's still not clear why the IOC sees this as a bad thing. Giles is helping to promote their event. For free. Next time, maybe he should just send them a bill.

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Go To The Olympics? Take Photos? Put Them On Flickr? Await Olympic Committee Legal Threat Letter

from the and-the-gold-medal-in-promotional-idiocracy-goes-to... dept

And we've got yet another example of insane attempts by the Olympics to extend copyright and trademark law well beyond its stated intentions (which, tragically, some governments have been known to accept in order to get the Olympics on their home turf). This time, it involves the International Olympic Committee sending a cease-and-desist to a guy who posted the photos he took at the Beijing Olympics on Flickr. Seriously.

It's hard to understand what they're complaining about specifically. They mention that he violated the "terms and conditions" on the back of the ticket (which are often not enforceable, anyway) in "licensing pictures." Inquistr suggests the problem is that the guy, Richard Giles, put his own photos (on which he owns the copyright) on Flickr under a Creative Commons license. It's difficult to see what sort of leg the IOC has to stand on here (though, it may involve jurisdiction in a few different countries). The guy took photos himself -- so it's his copyright. Putting them under a CC license is then his decision. The trademark claims are laughable. At best, the IOC might be able to claim breach of contract in violating the "back of the ticket" agreement -- but even that seems like a stretch, and it's difficult to see what sort of "harm" the IOC could suggest these photos caused.

It's difficult to understand what the IOC thinks its accomplishing here. This was someone spreading the word (and view) of his Olympic attendance to his friends and many others online. You would think that would be seen as good and free advertising rather than as something for which the legal dogs should be unleashed. What sort of organization lets loose its lawyers on a fan posting photos showing off his cool experience attending an event? Honestly, I can't fathom what anyone at the IOC could possibly be thinking here.

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Olympics Tries To Block Olympian Newspaper (From Olympia, Washington) From Trademarking Its Name

from the and-the-gold-medal-in-trademark-pushyness-goes-to... dept

It's no secret that the Olympics can be ridiculously over aggressive with trademark claims, often getting governments to pass special intellectual property rules to allow the Olympics special control over certain names or phrases well outside the contours of existing intellectual property law. The various Olympic committees insist they "need" this to protect their revenue stream, but we didn't realize that gov'ts had any responsibility in helping the Olympics make lots of money. The latest move is that the US Olympic Committee is protesting a trademark application for the name of The Olympian, a newspaper in Olympia, Washington (thanks to Erik for sending that in). It would appear that the Olympian has been operating since 1889. That would be seven years prior to the first modern "Olympics" in 1896.

While I am left wondering why the Olympian suddenly decided to try to register the trademark on its name now (leading to the attempt to block the trademark), it does seem pretty ridiculous that the Olympics could suddenly claim that there might be confusion between the two after over a century of the two "brands" living together peacefully.

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NBC Universal's Great Idea: Let's Make It Harder And More Expensive To Watch The Olympics

from the this-is-a-joke,-right? dept

During the last Olympics, we sat stunned as NBC Universal made mistake after mistake after mistake in making it incredibly difficult for fans who wanted to watch the Olympics online to do so. And then, NBC Universal executives bragged about how difficult they made it to watch, when really they just shot themselves in the foot, since even the audience who could actually watch it online watched it more on TV. In other words, everything about NBC Universal's strategy backfired... and then they talked about how great it worked. It's hard to understand how the folks involved still have jobs.

But... rather than learn from that, it looks like NBC Universal has decided to make things even worse for the next Olympics. NewTeeVee points us to the news that NBC Universal is working on a deal that will require online viewers to first prove they have a pay TV package before granting them the ability to watch buggy, limited, delayed online video of the event. Oh, and of course, this will only apply to the cable or satellite providers who first pay NBC Universal for the privilege. How a viewer will "prove" he or she is a customer is still being decided, but will likely involve an IP address if you're at home, or some other convoluted system if you're elsewhere.

This really is just an extension of the ongoing discussions between the networks and cable/satellite TV providers to lock up their content behind a paywall before online video wipes away the need for pay TV. It's like watching a trainwreck way in advance. Any attempt to limit what can be done for the sake of keeping an old business model in place has always failed miserably. It's always disappointing to see people who should know better make the same mistake over and over and over again.

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Vancouver Olympics Using Copyright Law (Rather Than Scalping Laws) To Ban Ticket Reselling

from the misuse-of-copyright dept

Michael_S points us to the news that the Vancouver Olympics -- no stranger to massive abuse of intellectual property law -- is now using copyright law to prevent ticket resales. Now, lots of places around the world have anti-scalping laws that forbid reselling of event tickets (or reselling them above a certain price). Vancouver, however, does not have any such law. No problem for the Olympics folks... they're using the special copyright they were granted on a whole host of common terms, including "Vancouver 2010" to sue resellers offering the tickets. Obviously, that's got nothing to do with the purpose of copyright law, but when you grant silly monopolies, don't be surprised when they're abused.

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Should DVD Counterfeiters Fear Police Or The Internet More?

from the just-saying... dept

A bunch of people have sent in this story about UK Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy claiming that by the 2012 Olympics, London will be a "fake-free zone" as he begins to crackdown on counterfeit DVD sellers. Not surprisingly, this move involved a variety of public and private parties, including the Motion Picture Association, UK Film Council, UK Intellectual Property Office, Federation Against Copyright Theft, London Councils, Trading Standards and the London police. Of course, the whole thing seems sort of yawn inducing. For a few years now, there have been stories noting that internet file sharing has been putting the counterfeit street sellers out of business. And, over the course of the next four years, you have to imagine that pace is only going to accelerate. So, congrats, David Lammy, for spending taxpayer money on stomping out something that was naturally dying out anyway.

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Canadian Olympic Committee Tries To Trademark Lyric From National Anthem

from the now-that's-chutzpah dept

We were just talking about how the UK had granted all sorts of extraordinary trademark rights to the Olympics for the 2012 games, but the same is true in Canada. Last year, we had reported on similar special trademark rights given to the Olympics for the games in Vancouver in 2010. However, now the Canadian Olympic Committee is taking it to another level. Reader Michael_S alerts us to the news that the Olympic Committee is trying to trademark a line from the Canadian national anthem, "O, Canada." Specifically, it's applying for a trademark on "with glowing hearts," which comes from the song's lyric: "With glowing hearts we see thee rise, the true North strong and free." Even more ridiculous is the list of products that the Olympic Committee claims its trademark would cover: "laundry bleach, diesel fuel, dietary supplements, key chains, belt buckles knapsacks, bobble-head dolls, bathrobes, edible fats and beer." Is the Olympic committee planning to sell diesel fuel under the brand "with glowing hearts"?

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Don't Say 2012 Olympics Unless You've Paid Your Licensing Fee

from the IP-gone-mad dept

The Olympics are notorious for getting local governments to grant them extra special intellectual property rights that go so far beyond what's reasonable (and local existing laws) that it's become something of a pure mockery of the concept of intellectual property. Remember how non-sponsored brands found in and around the Olympics in Beijing were covered by tape? Well, that may be nothing compared to what's going to happen in London. Two years ago, we noted that the Olympics had convinced UK officials to create a special trademark law, just for the Olympics that gave special protections to a variety of terms relating to the Olympics, including 2012, games, gold, silver and bronze. Yes, if you were to say "reach for the gold in 2012" as part of any advertisement and you weren't an approved Olympic sponsor, you'd be breaking the law in the UK.

Even though this all happened two years ago, it appears that a variety of companies are waking up to how ridiculous this is. A marketing body in the UK has now released a report detailing how draconian the law is for marketers. The one thing that's still never been explained is why governments would grant these rights -- which go well beyond traditional trademark rights -- to the Olympics, which isn't exactly hurting for sponsors. What's wrong with applying traditional trademark law to the Olympics as well?

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NBC Proud That It Made It More Difficult For People To Watch The Olympics

from the really-didn't-think-this-through dept

We've already explained how screwed up NBC's Olympic coverage policy on the web turned out to be. Its use of proprietary technology and annoying restriction severely limited its online audience -- even though the company admitted that its own research found that the more people watched online, the more they watched it on TV as well. So, given all that, you have to wonder why NBC Universal's Rick Cotton is somehow claiming a "victory" in preventing other sites from showing Olympics coverage. After all, his own company admitted that online viewing didn't cannibalize TV viewing, but only encouraged more of it. By that measure, Cotton's efforts to prevent clips of the Olympics being shared elsewhere on the web actually shrunk NBC's audience. Yet, according to Cotton: "It was a great, great success." Then again, this is the same Rick Cotton who once tried to convince Congress that it had to stop movie piracy to help poor corn farmers and claimed that no one at NBC Universal could come up with a working business model for TV content without government help, so logic might not be a strong point.

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NBC's Crippled Online Olympics Coverage Attracts Small Audience

from the surprise! dept

NBC apparently got about 72 million video streams during this Olympics season, and is touting this as a great success. It's true that this is a lot more than any previous Olympics, but I don't think NBC has anything to crow about. Remember, this is the most famous sporting event in the world, and it got non-stop media coverage for close to a month. Yet in a country with 300 million people, they only got a total of 72 million streams? That's less than one stream for every 4 Americans. And as Ben Worthen points out, YouTube streamed 4.2 billion videos—60 times as many—in the month of May. So people are clearly watching a lot of videos. Most of them just aren't NBC's Olympics videos.

Amazingly, NBC is "using the Olympics to assert that TV is the preferred medium of consumers," with 93 percent of all viewing. I think this says less about consumers than about NBC's own marketing decisions. The problem is that despite its protests to the contrary, NBC wasn't serious about web-based coverage of the Olympics. They held back the most popular coverage for television audiences, forcing online viewers to wait until later (sometimes much later due to a desire for tape delays) to watch the stuff they were really interested in. It looks like they also forced anyone who wanted to watch the video to download and install Microsoft's Silverlight plugin. And of course they've gone out of their way to make embedding impossible, cutting off one of the most popular ways of expanding the reach of content. Not surprisingly, when NBC makes the Internet a second-class medium for Olympics coverage, most people watch TV instead.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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China Blocks iTunes After Olympic Athletes Download Pro-Tibetan Music

from the so-much-for-the-lack-of-censorship dept

So, while it turned out to be a myth that China would drop the Great Firewall during the Olympics, it's still a bit surprising to hear that China is apparently blocking at least some access to iTunes. Apparently, an organization put out an album of pro-Tibetan songs, and asked Olympic athletes to download the songs and put them on their iPods as a sort of quiet protest. Of course, then the group put out a press release, claiming that 40 Olympians had done so... and, suddenly folks in China are having trouble accessing iTunes. Not surprisingly, a "semi-official news portal" of the Chinese gov't claims that folks in China are denouncing Apple for even offering the music, and are calling for the musicians featured on the album to be banned from playing in China.

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NBC Seems To Have Learned The Wrong Lesson About Scarcity

from the an-olympic-gold-in-misunderstanding dept

Of the various television companies, NBC Universal has always had the most trouble grasping the basic economics of scarcity and abundance, so perhaps it's no surprise that it's still misinterpreting the data that shows its mistake in trying to stop anyone from watching any of the major Olympic events live online. Instead, it forced people to wait until it was aired, hours later, on TV. This is leading to massive frustration, as people hear about various events, but can't see them for a while. Stunningly, NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker seems to think this is a good thing, claiming:

"There's no question we did the right thing in holding the opening ceremony to air in prime time on NBC that night. The excitement that built out of word of mouth that the opening ceremony was the most spectacular thing that people had seen, that China had wanted to make a statement and they made a statement and people wanted to see that."

Read that a few times and spot the logical inconsistency. He's basically saying that by forbidding people from seeing the content and frustrating them, it built up word of mouth excitement. Apparently, it hasn't occurred to him (despite what his own data suggests) that another way to have built up word of mouth about the events would be to show them so that people could watch them live and tell their friends about it getting them to go see it when it gets rebroadcast again in prime time.

At the link above, Chris Matyszczyk, lays on the satire in responding to this view that forced deprivation breeds word of mouth demand:

So one assumes, given that this strategy has been so successful, the next time NBC's cameras exclusively witness, say, an assassination or a politician saying or doing something nutty, they will keep it to themselves until prime time comes along. You know, just to build up the excitement.

Let's hold NBC to this standard, shall we?

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Covering Up Any Brand In Beijing That Hasn't Paid To Sponsor The Olympics

from the ip-insanity dept

Every time you think that the Olympics' bizarre obsession with extra-ordinary protections on intellectual property took a step beyond ridiculous, you were probably just underestimating the International Olympic Committee, who will just keep going further and further. You may recall the efforts put forth by the IOC to get special trademarks on certain words, like 2010 and Vancouver and 2012 and London, since that's where the next two Olympics will take place. While it seems ridiculous to be able to get trademarks on such things (and goes against the very purpose of trademark law), politicians seem to bow down to the Olympics. But that was just the start.

The Olympics has threatened any non-sponsor advertiser from even mentioning the Olympics, banned people in the stands from wearing clothing that has the logos of competitors to sponsors and even insisted that its security technology choices would be limited to sponsors, even if others had better technology.

The latest, however, may be the most ridiculous. All over Beijing, the brands of non-sponsors are being covered up by Olympic officials so that no one thinks that faucet maker American Standard got a "free ride." Seriously. They're putting tape over the brand name on faucets. And on light switches. And the headphones used by reporters and many other places where perfectly normal brands might occur. They've even covered up the name of a major hotel in Beijing, because it's not an Olympic sponsor.

In media centers, dormitories and arena bathrooms, pieces of tape cover logos of fire extinguishers, light switches, thermostats, bedroom night tables, soap dispensers and urinals. The Taiden Industrial translation headsets in a large conference room have had their logos covered, as have the American Standard faucets in the bathrooms nearby, and the ThyssenKrupp escalators down the hall. Even the sign atop the InterContinental Beijing Beichen hotel, attached to the Main Press Center, has been obscured by an Olympic cloth wrap. InterContinental Hotels Group isn't an Olympic sponsor.

Why? Well, the IOC claims that it's necessary:

The International Olympic Committee says that such "brand protection" is essential for the Games to raise the corporate money that keeps them going and growing. The Games get 40% of their revenue from sponsors, with the rest coming from broadcast rights, ticketing and licensing.

A few quick responses to that whopper of a statement:

• The purpose of trademark law is not to protect the ability of the Olympics to make a profit. It's to avoid people being confused into thinking one product is made by someone else.
• Even if it's important for the Olympics to make money off of sponsors, it's difficult to see why that would necessitate blocking everyone else's brands. No other event does this, and those events make out just fine.
• Couldn't some of the covered up brands make the exact same response back? American Standard sold its faucets at a certain price, knowing that it would get some brand recognition from having its brand on the faucets. By blocking that, aren't the Olympics denying American Standard's "essential brand protection" that it needs to keep making money?

Once again, the true spirit of the Olympic games seems to be in absolutely trashing the meaning and purpose of intellectual property laws.

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NBC Admits It Was Wrong To Worry About Online Olympics Watching Cannibalizing TV Viewing

from the who-woulda-thunk-it? dept

NBC Universal has a long history of totally misunderstanding the relationship between online video and TV video. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary (including from NBC's own competitor, CBS, which was quick to point out that more online watching resulted in more TV watching), NBC has insisted that online watching somehow cannibalizes TV viewers. That explains why its online Olympics offerings are so weak -- not showing any of the really interesting stuff until many hours after its been broadcast on TV.

Amazingly, NBC execs seem to actually be admitting they made a pretty big mistake here. In going over their own research, they're finally realizing that rather than cannibalizing, people watching on either TV or online only seems to get them to watch more of the other, as it just makes them more interested in the Olympics as a whole. Of course, given how NBC has behaved in the past, don't expect it to recognize this in other parts of its business (or, say, start broadcasting stuff online before the tape delay on TV). Also, don't expect it to realize that perhaps its lawsuit against Redlasso is totally misguided, even though Redlasso helps more people see NBC content online.

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The IOC Joins the DMCA Censorship Club

from the ready?-set?-censored! dept

The International Olympic Committee is no stranger to overzealous protection of what they perceive to be their intellectual property. We've covered their ridiculous attempts to change British law to "protect" the terms "Olympics" and "2012" (the year London hosts the summer games). It seems the folks at the IOC want to control all aspects of their sporting event, even how people discuss it. Knowing this, and the ways in which the DMCA has been abused time and time again, it was hardly surprising when the IOC sent a take-down notice to YouTube for a video posted by Students for a Free Tibet.

The video, which showed a pro-Tibet candle-light vigil in New York City and images from the March protests in Tibet, was dutifully pulled by YouTube. However, it was unclear what infringement the IOC was claiming. Although their famous interlocking rings were briefly shown, that would seem to be a trademark, not covered by the DMCA. Even if they claimed the rings were copyrighted creative content, their creation in 1913 places them firmly in the public domain (on copyright, the trademark remains -- but the DMCA isn't for trademark). Luckily after a number of sites questioned the action, the IOC withdrew their complaint. This remains troubling, though. The DMCA was not meant to silence legitimate speech, but the number of times litigants have suppressed content they don't like is staggering. This case benefits from external media attention due to existing hot-button political issues, but not all censored YouTube videos are so lucky and, undoubtedly, bogus DMCA requests have censored videos which result not in blogosphere outrage, but silenced expression.

Kevin Donovan is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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So About That Plan To Drop The Great Firewall For Olympics Reporters? Yeah, Forget That...

from the whoops dept

Back in February, there were some rumors making the rounds that the Chinese gov't was planning to drop its "Great Firewall" of internet censorship, to make sure that reporters had full access to the internet as necessary. Then, in April, the International Olympic Committee specifically asked government censors to drop the filters during the Olympics. Even that request seemed sketchy, as the IOC said that leaving the filters in place would "reflect poorly" on China. I would think that having the filters in the first place (and putting them back after the Olympics) would also "reflect poorly" on China, but that's a separate discussion.

However, what really does reflect poorly is the news that China hasn't dropped the filters at all. Journalists are complaining, but apparently the Chinese censors and the IOC have come to a compromise: China won't censor any Olympics websites. Unless they mention Tibet or something. In other words, China hasn't really loosened the Great Firewall at all.

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NBC's Online Olympic Video Not Even Remotely Compelling

from the sharing?-stuff-we-want-to-watch? dept

NBC is hyping up how it's really embracing the web this year in its Olympic coverage. However, the details suggest that (as per usual with NBC Universal) it's taking a very old school approach -- meaning the web is treated as a second class citizen and that it won't be either useful or interesting to people online. That is, there are some restrictions that make its online efforts close to pointless. First, the videos won't be embeddable elsewhere. In other words, one of the key factors for online videos these days -- the shareability of those videos -- won't be allowed. NBC is trying to control and hoard the content -- which goes against everything the web should have taught the big shots at NBC Universal.

Secondly, while NBC is talking up 2,200 live hours of competition being shown online, it's sounding like those 2,200 hours will be of the content that people aren't as interested in watching. That is, the stuff that's being shown on TV will not be simulcast online. In fact, it won't be available to watch online until after it's been shown on TV (so, hardly live). So, any of the big important stuff will have to wait until NBC has shown it on TV (most likely on tape delay). So the only really "live" content you'll see is the stuff that isn't particularly interesting.

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IOC: No Chinese Internet Filters During Olympics; All Other Times It's Fine

from the why-just-for-the-olympics? dept

Back in February, a New Yorker story claimed that China was planning to disable its "Great Firewall" for the Olympics, so it may not mean very much to hear that the International Olympic Committee is now demanding that China do exactly that. If the Chinese government was already planning on opening up the internet, it's pretty weak to then demand it anyway. Besides, there does seem to be something rather sketchy about the IOC demanding China drop the firewall just for the Olympics, saying it "would reflect very poorly" on the country. Does it not "would reflect very poorly" on China during the rest of the time as well? It's a cheap ploy for the IOC to demand the filters be taken down just for that period of time. It gives the IOC publicity as standing up to censorship, even though it doesn't care what happens when the Olympics aren't in town.

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Not Only Does The Olympics Want Special IP Protections; It Wants To Ignore Everyone Else's

from the funny-how-that-works dept

The Olympic Committee is rather infamous for its ability to convince governments to pass special intellectual property laws just to protect the Olympics. However, it appears as though the folks involved with the Olympics don't take others' IP rights so seriously. Slashdot points out that it appears the Beijing Olympics website has copied a flash game designed by someone else. So, apparently, not only does the Olympics want extra special rights concerning its own efforts, it wants to ignore the already existing copyrights of others. While I find it silly to even try to protect copyright on a simple game like this, it does say something an organization like the Olympics is so keen on over-protecting its own rights while ignoring them for others.

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