

How Copyrights Ruined the Olympics and What You Can Learn From It - reggiecasual
http://blog.kunvay.com/how-copyrights-ruined-the-olympics-and-what-you-can-learn-from-it/

======
Apreche
It wasn't copyright that ruined the Olympics. Copyright was just one tool that
was used in service of ruining them.

The real ruiner is advertising. When a business makes most, or all, of its
money from advertising and sponsorships that business necessarily becomes
beholden to the desires of those sponsors. Companies that take advertising
very rarely, if ever, say no to their sponsors, so sponsors have gotten into
the habit of making whatever ludicrous and extreme demands they can come up
with, because they know the answer will be yes. This is how you get a
situation where Visa is the only credit card accepted on the Olympic grounds.

In the land of journalism, in magazines and newspapers, it is an ethics
violation to have the advertisers influence the content. Even then, it still
happens all the time, as in video game journalism. The Olympics is not a
journalistic institution. It can do whatever its advertisers ask. Since each
of the advertisers is paying such an enormous amount of money, without which
the Olympics would not exist, the sponsors effectively own the Olympics. Even
if the organizing committees would rather not do as the sponsors say, they are
afraid to say no. The sponsors know that even though their demands are
extreme, it mostly makes the Olympics look bad, not themselves.

I see this same thing happening in many ad-supported companies. The
advertisers have more decision making power than the CEO. It's a great deal.
You get to effectively own a company without actually taking any of the risks,
or doing any of the work, associated with actually owning the company. And the
cost of sponsorship is a lot less than the cost of buying stock.

~~~
gizzlon
It's still a symbiosis, and it's up to us as the consumers to penalize this
type of behavior. When we don't, we indirectly support it.

For example, I wonder why anyone would put up with the logo-censoring "police"
after paying (I assume) a lot to get into the games. At least they should
think twice before buying their next Olympic ticket.

~~~
Evbn
Because the IOC holds the games hostage. We can't just vote with our wallets
for some other worldwiden sportfest.

------
adaml_623
The Olympics wasn't ruined but it was crippled from becoming what it could
have been. Everybody who wasn't officially organising it was shunted into the
category of watching and being entertained.

The population was treated like sheep. This is actually true if you
experienced the one-way systems and barriers in the public transport system
and figuratively true if you experienced the TV coverage.

There was so little opportunity for collaboration. For local councils and pubs
to organise their own special olympic celebrations. Local shops couldn't
innovate and offer olympic specials.

During the Royal Wedding and the Royal Jubilee (Queen 60 years on throne) the
general public and so many businesses made the celebration their own. It was
really quite joyful. The olympics had an opportunity to incorporate that but
instead went down the big corporate event path.

------
beseku
It's interesting, as I live in London and, even after getting a bit angry
about how strong the copyright police were being, would have to admit that the
Olympics were a resounding success. Everybody I met who was previously cynical
grew to love the event, the city was absolutely rocking, the park was
tremendous and the worst thing about it was the subsequent downer the city is
now on.

Ruined is a bit strong, I guess is what I mean.

~~~
pi18n
I'm so disappointed in you and most of the rest of the world. I'm glad you
think the circus was worth what you traded for it, but it seems like a large
step onto a slippery slope to me.

~~~
beseku
What was traded in? The infrastructure couldn't have been built without the
sponsors and restrictive agreements which, after the event, didn't have much
of an effect on creating a huge party spirit throughout the city.

The only trade was sponsors for any kind of event at all and I'm glad that
happened, as it was a fantastic fortnight of sport.

------
slantyyz
When I hear stories of NBC paying over a --billion dollars-- for TV rights and
then hear about an Irish gymnast who had to scrounge and fundraise just to get
there, I wonder what the "Olympic Spirit" is really all about.

~~~
amalag
Mark Cuban's blog post is a nice eye opener on this I think. Olympics being
owned by a bunch of swiss bankers makes me just want to avoid it all.

------
scrumper
Note for non-British readers: Boris Johnson is the Mayor of London, not the
Lord Mayor of London. The latter is a largely ceremonial and supportive role
concerned only with the ancient City of London, the square mile containing the
financial district.

Left a comment on the original article but it was removed. Disappointing to
see such pointless inaccuracy on a website devoted to a subject where nuance
and precision count for so much. I could have understood getting it wrong the
other way round, but the author - a lawyer educated in the UK - had to
actually add a word in to make it incorrect.

~~~
emckiernan
Your comment's still there, and he's corrected the phrasing.

~~~
scrumper
Huh, it wasn't when I posted this several hours later. Thanks for pointing
that out! Can't edit my comment above so will let it stand.

For the record, I'm glad they changed it and I apologise for coming across a
bit strong above.

~~~
kunvay
No problem. We fixed it. Our blog is new and the moderated comments default
was still on our wordpress. Fixed now. Thanks for heads up on the mayor's
title correction.

------
mcantelon
In the age of austerity, it's great that governments are still willing to
commit huge amounts of taxpayer money to subsidize corporates sporting events.

------
VBprogrammer
As a Londoner I think saying the corporate non-sense spoiled the Olympics is
very much overstating the facts.

Yes, it left a slightly bitter after taste. Yes I'd have liked local
businesses to be able to cash in to some extent on the Olympics. But
seriously, it was a great event, something I will probably never see again in
my lifetime and I'm glad to have witnessed it.

Unfortunately it would be really difficult to put on an event of such
magnitude without sponsorship, and if everyone can associate themselves with
the games then I'm sure that would ultimately reduce the value of that
sponsorship.

------
sageikosa
Basically a competition between countries with large populations to pull
athletes from, those with well-funded training programs, and Usain Bolt. Other
than the fact that the local NBC affiliate pushed it hard, and we tuned in to
see if David Tennant would light the torch (time can be rewritten) I can't say
that I paid much attention.

------
macspoofing
Agreed. I had a lot of trouble finding relevant Olympic video online. For
example, it took a good amount of searching to find some clips of the
Badminton scandal, even a day after the occurrence. Youtube was particularly
unhelpful as, I'm sure, it was policed extra hard.

------
hcarvalhoalves
What ruined the Olympics and still ruins pretty much all good things related
to copyright is putting money above everything else.

------
DanLivesHere
Huh.

I really liked the Olympics. And almost all the "normals" I know did, too.

