Getting around the London 2012 branding police | Hacker News Reader

Getting around the London 2012 branding police

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227 pointsbillpg129 comments

My hometown recently hosted the first Youth Olympic Winter games. Despite the fact that you probably never heard of them, they are just as official as the real Olympic games.

The organizers demanded that every non-sponsor logo in the venues be removed. Not just advertising, they wanted everything gone. Some poor schmucks had to go around and cover every logo with a piece of tape. On clocks, furniture, faucets and even inside the bidets and toilet bowls.

Meanwhile they plastered ads for Coca Cola and Samsung all over our city.

Olympic spirit my ass.

"Olympic spirit my ass."

Careful where you say that... they might brand that, too.

"Summer of sport spirit" actually has a nice ring to it.

I wonder about the allowance of typos? Could I sell merchandise with "Olympix" or "London 2k12"?

Based on my experience with VANOC well in advance of the Winter Olympics here in Vancouver - NO. I was in the process of making Olympic Anagram T-shirts (Olympian = Palimony) etc. and they threatened to destroy my life if any of my ART was found being sold online, on the street or on Mars. True.

Also, given that the Olympics have become a political battering ram to push through, at all levels of government, any project at any cost at any consequence in the future, the answer is still - NO.

Ridiculous argument.

1) You elect your government.

2) Your government CHOOSES to participate in the Olympic bidding process and CHOOSES when and how to build infrastructure.

Can you go in the street and sell Mikrosoft Windows or Apple EyeMacs ?

For a website with so many startups you think people would be a little more aware of how copyright and trademarks work.

As a Canadian, living in Canada, a country with NO "fair use" provisions because our laws are derived from those of the United Kingdom, I am well aware of how copyright and trademarks work. The Olympics are a rarefied, global, multinational corporation that demand governments bend to their will with respect to their trademarks if they want the games. Governments do so because it brings in revenue and also allows them to undertake mega projects that would otherwise never see the light of day.

Check Microsoft vs MikeRoweSoft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft

Also: For the 2010 FIFA World Cup the airline Kulula called itself the "Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What". The ad was pulled when a complaint was lodged, though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8576220.stm

Macrosoft - Where do you want to go tomorrow?

The same city where the olympics used a line from the national anthem as it's motto and tried to claim that it had a copyright on it?

Reminds me of the 2010 World Cup "ambush-marketing" fiasco involving 36 ladies who were detained by South African police for "advertising" a non-FIFA sanctioned beer at the world cup, by daring to wear their countries colour at a game.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/world...

Wearing (just) your underwear at a game = OK.

Wearing clothing with a non-sanctioned beer label = not ok.

Insane.

You know, for all that I hear people complain about "corporations buying our government", I sure don't hear a lot of the same people complaining in this case where they have actually explicitly bought off the government.

All for the glory of Visa, Proctor and Gamble, McDonalds, Acer, Samsung, Panasonic, General Electric, and Dow Chemical.

It's because normal people understand that:

a) Companies who sponsor an event have a right to not be screwed over.

b) Most taxpayers don't want to pay more for the Olympics then they have to.

a) does that mean the people necessarily have to be screwed over if that's the only way for the company not to be? the desires of commerce necessitate a loss of freedom?

>Companies who sponsor an event have a right to not be screwed over. > >Most taxpayers don't want to pay more for the Olympics then they have to.

It's stupid to pay to host a branded event that won't let us talk about it.

The modern Olympics, at its root, is a scam. A big money party is hosted so local businesses and connected contractors can make a killing and the expenses get charges to taxpayers. It's always justified as economic stimulus but it's the most vague, frivolous possible means of economic stimulus and tax dollars should not be spent on it.

a) So, mute button is banned on remotes? You're grasping at straws. Do note that the law is far-reaching, beyond the Olympic premises.

b) The taxpayer paid billions. The sponsors paid millions.

Where can I meet these 'normal people' to explain the basics of liberty, property rights, freedom of association, freedom of speech, etc?

Only thing insane is your misrepresentation of the facts.

Wearing (just) your underwear at a game = OK.

Being PAID by a competitor to wear clothing and attend the game that they weren't previous going to attend = NOT OK.

He is not misrepresenting facts. Pardon me, but RTFA.

They were wearing orange dresses to the game, as orange is the color of the Netherlands. They were not paid. Orange is a color dutch people wear when they want to be patriotic, and it goes as far back when William of Orange threw off the Spanish rule once upon a time, and there is even a county of Orange and I am not really that well versed on dutch history, except that I know they wear orange to football games.

They were accused of advertising for Bavaria Beer, who also happen to have an orange advertising scheme. Also, Bavaria had paid people to wear orange lederhosen (without branding, to get around advertising rules) to games before, which is why these girls got the treatment.

I read the article.

A Fifa spokesman said Bavaria had a “long history” of ambush marketing at sporting events and it was clear the girls had been put up to wearing the dresses.

Whether the ladies involved were put up to it or not is irrelevant. The fact that FIFA could persuade a sovereign nation to amend its laws to align itself to FIFAs corporate interests is a highly disturbing precedent.

South Africa has a very high murder rate, presumably the police there have better things to do than arrest people on the basis of what they wear to a soccer match[1]

(Big rant warning)

BTW, FIFA are a hopelessly corrupt, self-serving organisation, easily the most corrupt in modern sport. I wouldn't take anything they say seriously. They are actively bad for the game of soccer globally. The English FA (in charge of football in the UK) has publicly stated that they will back any delegate who will run against FIFAs current president, a toxic character called Sepp Blatter. FIFA and Blatter hold soccer back by not adopting technology like video refs and goal line technology (you know, stuff present in nearly all other major sports) which introduces enormous controversy pretty much every week in the game. Conspiracy theories about refs and dodgy decisions abound. They pay no tax on the income they make from organising the World Cup- as they are registered as a charity in Switzerland! It's pretty much accepted that they bribed FIFA delegates to vote for hosting the World Cup 2018 in Russia (cold, hard for fans to get travel visas), and Qatar in 2022 (extremely hot during summer when WC games are played, alcohol banned because its the Middle East)[2]

[1]http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/232544/20111017/south-africa...

[2]http://www.ghfapremierleague.com/read.php?1,45386

I have to agree. South Africa is left with costly white-elephant stadiums, and any investment goodwill we would have gained was probably squandered by an out-of-control ruling party politician. The short term effects were spectacular - the country worked brilliantly, and showed its potential, but it quickly began to sink back into mediocrity.

Anyone who invested in vuvuzelas came out rich as hell.

Anything a FIFA spokesman says is immediately suspect and usually 180 degrees from what is actually going on.

You know when those people are lying, the first clue is their lips moving.

Purposeful or not, it worked out great for Bavaria because of the ensuing Streisand effect.

I've never understand the hatred towards sponsors who partly pay for the games.

Would you rather have taxpayers pay even more for the Olympics ? Or how about in the case of the Youth Olympics not having it at all.

What they get for the relatively trivial amount they pay is massively disproportionate to the benefit the taxpayer sees.

During the kicking a ball around a green field with a lot of people watching event during a hot season in germany, they almost shut down the ball kickers team busses of the hosting nation down by said logo issue.

Since Mercedes (the producer of the team busses) was not a official sponsor (that was Hyundai, ehich didn't produce any busses afaik) they had to remove the mercedes logo. Tough luck was, they had radar sensors in the logo, so covering it would hve shut down the electronic (at least according to the press reports).

Whats really rediculous is, that even when a official sponsor can't provide a certain product or service, the other logo has to be removed. Even if you are official supplier to a participating team but not an official sponsor you can't show your logo.

I'm wondering when we have the first non-state entities being recognized as souvereign states... Hell, then you could even tax your own employees! :-)

I bet a provocative non-sponsor could mount a successful satirical ad campaign, especially given the national sense of humor:

"A lot of folks will be visiting to Lon-- (cough) to England this summer. Our proud city is hosting the... you know... the thing.

When you're on vacation, why not stay with someone you know? If you're coming to the you-know-what here in you-know-where, you know us. Hotel Whatever: We don't play games here."

The airline Kulula.com did this when there was that big thing where they kicked a ball around in the year between 2009 and 2011 in the country that's towards Antarctica from Namibia.

http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/kulula-vs-fifa-ro...

The international federation of kicking balls around, well, they kicked some balls around.

Welcome to The City That Should Not Be Named for The Event That Should Not Be Named.

I've wondered about this with the Superbowl, aka "The Big Game". I understand that refusing to let people mention your hugely popular event without paying is a quick way to make money. But does it help in the long term?

For events no one's ever heard of, obviously, it would be better to spread the word, rather than delete all unofficial mentions. It seems to me that eventually, the Superbowl will be better known as "the Big Game" or some other euphemism, and the NFL will be stuck wondering why they squandered their valuable trademark.

The Olympics, due to its historical nature, may be less susceptible. But how do you trademark a term that has been used since ~750 BC? I'm wondering what would happen if there were a movement to follow the rules religiously. Imagine if the only place you heard "Olympics" was in crappy advertisements? And every real human you talked to just said "The Quadrennial International Grab-Bag of Sports". Or maybe the "Quigbos".

Anyway, I'm rambling. I just really hope these language police get what's coming to them.

But how do you trademark a term that has been used since ~750 BC?

You pass an Act of Parliament to that effect. I'm not even kidding; that's what they've done.

True in the U.S. as well; the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 granted a special trademark on "Olympic" and "Olympiad". That trademark was challenged by the Sports Event Formerly Known As The Gay Olympics, but the Supreme Court upheld it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Arts_%26_Athletic...

Remember the UK doesn't have a constitution and hence it's not clear what it can't do. One common theory is "Parliament can pass a law on anything that's not physically impossible". Kinda makes a change from "only regulat interstate commerce"

While it's not always good, it does allow government to move quickly and avoids the kind of weird deadlocks (eg. over healthcare, the budget) that one sees in the US.

There are also limits: MPs individually vote, and on something that was hugely controversial they would defy the whips. It's not "the Government" but a collection of individuals. And in the end we can vote them out and overturn absolutely any legislation in the next Parliament.

Allowing government to move quickly and without restriction is not something that many would see as a good thing.

Government deadlocks are not always a bad thing, either, particularly when the issue is controversial. I'd argue that it is far better to have an issue debated and for compromises to occur, than to have one party's solution shoved quickly into place. This includes so-called emergencies, which are often excuses to go after civil liberties.

Rushed legislation is usually bad legislation.

As a UK citizen I agree with you, the real problem is the apathetic electorate though, we get the politicians we deserve.

Unfortunately, the recent US budget fiasco shows that governance rules intended to discourage excess speed and encourage debate can backfire.

And the lack or party disaplin means that you have to make lots of dubious deals to dole out pork or to pander to fringe extremists. Oh and in most places adding unrealted riders to bills for pork is banned.

Germany has the same problem caused by PR Andrea Merkal needs 1 green vote to stay in power so buy buy Nuclear power

I am sure Rep or Dem whips visiting the HOC must be jelous of the power that their counterparts have.

Of course the UK has a constitution, what we don't have is a single "core document" that codifies the constitution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_King...

Said constitution can also be changed by any act of Parliament, so I'm not sure. Parliamentary supremacy was supposedly part of the UK constitution until parliament gave up some of its sovereignty to the EU.

Forgive my political ignorance, but can the US government not also create constitutional amendments?

Yes, but with an extremely high threshold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_Stat...

It essentially requires 2/3 of both the House and Senate to agree on it, and then 3/4 of the States have to ratify it.

These days, meeting such a threshold is probably effectively impossible.

> These days, meeting such a threshold is probably effectively impossible.

At first I was inclined to agree with you, but consider this: there were six amendements to the constitution in each half of the 20th century but just four in the entire 19 century. (The Bill of Rights and the 11th Amendment were all passed before 1800.) Now, it's true that when you throw out the 27th Amendment (whose multi-century ratification time makes its 1992 passage deceiving), it has been 41 years since the last amendment was passed. But there was 60 years between the 12th and 13th Amendments and 43 years between the 15th and 16th. Neither of those two lulls were signs that the Constitution had become effectively un-amendable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unite...

To add to what ceejayoz said: From an American perspective, the whole point of the constitution is that it places restrictions on the government which cannot be overridden with the mere congressional majority votes necessary for normal legislation and without an agreement by a super-majority of the states. The difficulty of changing the constitution is its defining characteristic. (The commonplace definition of a constitution--"a document which defines how the government operates"--is incidental.)

They can create them, but they can't pass them. It requires a popular referendum, and (edit) 75% of the states must ratify the amendment. Over 10,000 amendments have been proposed, but only 27 have passed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution#Pro...

From an American perspective, the importance of the constitution is not that it is a single document, but rather that it is substantially more difficult to change than normal law. The UK has no constitution in the specific but important sense that no laws passed by Parliament can be "unconstitutional".

Ah yes, this is why while the UK has rule of parliament the US has a non-elected ruling council of 9 wise elders.

Well, first, the 9 elders only have input insofar as the meaning of the constitution is disputable; they don't get to decide whether the general idea of freedom of speech is a good thing day-by-day like the UK parliament does. But more to your point, that the US constitution leads to rules being created by small group far removed from the election mechanism: yes, that is exactly the point. The authors of the constitution were quite deliberate in their choice to insulate several parts of the government from the whims of the people.

It would be more precise to say that the UK doesn't have a written constitution.

I remember long and fruitless, yet highly enjoyable, arguments with a friend on this one: if we have a constitution but it's not written down anywhere how do we know what it says? If we do know what it says then it can be written down.

If it can't be written down how could it enter as a factor in any legal proceedings?

Worth the paper it's not written on IMO.

    A: "You can't do that it flouts the UK constitution"
    B: "Oh right, what's the constitution say?"
    A: "Well, I can't tell you that ..."

It is written down, in 800 years of case law and legal decisions.

It's just a little more complicated than a few cliches about "all men being equal" written by slave owners

Sorry but that's from the Declaration of Independence. By the way, those clichés were not clichés when they were written -- that's why they were so revolutionary at the time. England certainly didn't recognize individual rights at the time. Dismissing the Constitution and the Declaration as a few clichés is to reveal an ignorance of the historical context of those documents.

Additionally, The British had slavery until 1833 -- slavery wasn't an American invention. Disparaging the paradox of slave owners writing all men were created equal is also revealing as to a lack of understanding of history and the context in which those documents were created as well as the political realities at the time.

Stick to code, your historical snark makes you look foolish.

So English (UK?) constitution === stare decisis with common law?

That of course makes the constitution unknowable because the supreme court, the House of Lords, can ignore precedent. So that still leaves us with no way to know the constitution the best we could hope for is to form a quorum of Lords and check that something is legally OK with them; even then they could changed their minds.

I still think that without a clearly defined and codified set of basic principles a nation doesn't have what I would call a constitution.

In practice I'm not sure it makes much difference.

Mostly constitutions, charters of rights and freedoms, or whatever are full of wonderful phrases about mankind. Especially if you get somebody good like Thomas Paine to write it. But it's the courts that decide if abortion is allowed and reject claims that smoking bans go against magna carta.

There are also administrative uses - the constitution sets down how often elections happen and who succeeds who. But if you are a 'nice' country that abides by that constitution then you would also presumably abide by the historical convention that the Queen picks the prime minister with the most seats in the house - even if that isn't written down.

If McArthur had decided to seize Washington in a military coup then a Constitution isn't physically going to stop him (that's what the marine corp is for!)

Similarly in Russia the new democratic constitution stopped Putin serving another term - but it didn't stop him putting a puppet in place.

According to Paul Levy, everyone calling the Superbowl the "Big Game" is stupid; they should just call it the Superbowl: http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2012/02/brand-name-weenies...

Sounds more like Paul Harvey.

It gets worse:

"But civil rights campaigners are worried about several clauses in the London Olympic Games and Games Act 2006. Section 19(4) could cover protest placards, they said, as it read: "The regulations may apply in respect of advertising of any kind including in particular – (a) advertising of a non-commercial nature, and (b) announcements or notices of any kind."

Section 22 allows a "constable or enforcement officer" to "enter land or premises" where they believe such an advert is being shown or produced. It allows for materials to be destroyed, and for the use of "reasonable force". The power to force entry requires a court warrant. Causing still further concern is a section granting the powers to an enforcement officer appointed by Olympic Delivery Authority.

Anita Coles, policy officer for Liberty, said: "This goes much further than protecting the Olympic logo for commercial use. Regulations could ban signs urging boycotts of sponsors with sweat shops. Then private contractors designated by the Olympic authority could enter homes and other premises in the vicinity, seizing or destroying private property."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/21/olympics2012-civil-...

Don't worry you will still be allowed to lawfully protest about, eg China in Tibet - you will just have to do it from the official Olympic protest site.

I believe this is somewhere in the Orkneys and shows the government's commitment to spreading the Olympics to the regions.

Only with the permission of the courts.

How is this ANY different to the status quo ?

Fine, let's just erase the whole event from the internet, I don't think it would be a huge loss for mankind.

Imagine for a moment a city without municipial transportation, without running water, electricity, phone service, cars[0], etc. Without your favorite restaurant chain. Heck, without those soap dispensers OP mentions. Suddenly it's no longer such a great place for hosting Games at.

Given that those items, venues, services etc. add substantially to the value of the Games and build London's value over long time, I find it strange only the direct, one-time sponsors get to display their brands.

----

[0] will they tape-over brand logos on citizens' cars just as well?

Given how short-term these sorts of events are and how unlikely it is to happen there again (in a lifetime), I suggest just letting them get on with the crazy thing and concentrate on more constructive subjects. One of those topics to keep the media busy.

I'd love to ignore it but the Gov unilaterally deciding to spend £10 billion of public money entertaining rich people for a week or two in the midst of a recession when there's rampant unemployment, an ever widening poverty gap and cuts on all but essential public services ... sorry can't ignore that.

Spot on. You speak for the majority of the population.

Living in London, I know no-one who supports it at all.

At previous "international steroid cases running about" events they have ejected people who had T-shirts with a non-sponsor logo, and people who drinking cans of the wrong sugary caffeinated drink

Charlie Brooker seems to be asking to be sued https://twitter.com/charltonbrooker

It seems as though there's provision for satirical use of a mark to be allowed in the UK under some circumstances, so he might be ok: http://www.dyoung.com/trademarknewsletter-nov07#anchorlink2

I like his dramatisations of publicly available video, like footage of parliament, that he is legally not allowed to use over here as his programmes count as satire.

That's right, in the UK it is actually illegal to use footage of parliament for satirical purposes.

Luckily, there is little need to satirise parliament, as they usually do a fine job of making themselves look utterly ridiculous without any external help. Every time I see footage of it these days I feel like I'm watching the worlds most boring medieval reenactment society.

Acuualy the written parlimentry sketches are much funnier.

>"satirical use of a mark" //

Of course there is provision for non-commercial uses of trademarks &c.. If this were about trademark law then London Olympics 2012 could be used by anyone as it's merely a description of an event - it's not a distinctive mark by any stretch of the imagination; people couldn't however use their "Lisa Simpson performs fellatio" logo for example.

The problem appears to be that the government passed a bill, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/12/schedule/4, to strictly limit free expression wrt the Olympics.

Presumably the IOC consider this sort of curtailing of rights to be part of what defines modern sporting events. TBH a request to do this should have had the response "we're sorry but the rights of the UK public aren't for sale to the highest bidder" ... obviously things swung the other way.

For example under the London Olympics 2006 Act Section 3 I can't mention "summer 2012" unless I'm a licensee of the new "London Olympic Association Right" lest a judge find me to be illegally associating commercial enterprise with the Olympics.

What a faff over a bit of sport.

I'd bet five (5) of your English pence that he's working on some articles/shows about the inanity of the games and the machinery surrounding it.

Getting a C&D or similar would be a good starting point for that.

Simon Hoggart (the main political sketch writer on the Guardian) has been even more scathing.

For a more technical discussion of the intricacies of this topic as it relates to British Law, you may find this article interesting:

http://www.bl.uk/sportandsociety/exploresocsci/businessecono...

If someone posts a prominent disclaimer that they are not an official sponsor, why should they be prevented from referring to an event by its actual name?

If I owned a bar, and I was showing the London 2012 games on the TVs, I would advertise that I was showing the London 2012 games on the TVs. Exactly what is wrong with that?

You'd still create an association between your ad and London 2012 in addition to using the term 'London 2012'.

So then the question becomes this: Should trademark owners be able to quash any unauthorized "connections" to their product, even if it's made clear that the connection is not a sponsorship, only a mention? Frankly, that seems like an incredible overreach to me, and I believe one not supported by law.

I used their language after reading terms on their site. They mention "establishing a connection" and outline terms their "protected" terms and logos. It may as well be an overreach but it seems they're an effective bully and the choices would be to either stop mentioning Olympics in ads or fight over interpretations of the various protections in court. I think most targeted vendors that would take on them would probably go bankrupt pretty fast.

Either way, I don't really know if they should be able to quash unauthorized ads but I do know they're going about it like assholes.

I would think that there would be some sort of "fair use" for trademarks. My understanding is that the philosophy behind trademark law in the US is always based on whether or not a reasonable consumer would infer that the advertisement is officially associated with the trademark holder. But given that, I don't know why so many companies use the term "The Big Game" rather than "Superbowl"; maybe they like it better than having to explicitly include a disclaimed. And I also have no idea how the law works in the UK.

There is, it's called nominative use (in the US, but similar must exist overseas). Otherwise no-one would ever be able to refer to a trademark without being open to a lawsuit. That's how books about technologies with trademarked names can exist, for instance.

I've been to one of the LOCOG[1] briefings for (potential) suppliers a few years ago. The rules and regulations were absolutely ridiculous. One of the most memorable images shown to us was that of a shop window featuring (amongst a host of other items) several disconnected rings. The presenter then proudly announced that this sort of thing was not permitted unless you were one of the official sponsors and that the shop in question had been punished for their transgressions.

Things got worse from there. Strictly no branding of any non-sponsors allowed anywhere, which meant no attribution of any kind (so you couldn't use the popular Silk icons on your website for example), not even in the URL (can't end in .aspx because that reflects a certain brand). Of course you also can't use or link to external websites (such as YouTube) so you'd effectively have to build your own video sharing service if you wanted to build something where people shared and uploaded video clips.

If you look over the official website with this in mind, you can see the hoops (no pun intended) the builders had to jump through everywhere. For example, the map (http://www.london2012.com/map.php) is entirely custom built and has no name in the copyright notice (it's only show when clicked). Or the aforementioned build-your-own video sharing service (http://www.london2012.com/videos/). Frankly I'm surprised there's a Server header in the HTTP response.

[1] London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, see http://www.london2012.com/about-us/the-people-delivering-the...

Does this mean I cannot advertise my planed trip to London in Summer 2012 as my London 2012 summer trip?

I don't even like sport! It is after the games! Or before! So my Winter 2014 Sochi trip blog falls flatt too?!?!?!!

I worked a tech company with a decent lawyer who needed to cross-check all the marketing newsletters and blog entries we posted related to the Winter Olympics. By the end we were using such convoluted terms that it rendered the entire exercise pointless.

Reminds me of Kulula Airlines vs FIFA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTmlderyH0A

It's always been like that, the Olympus-named athletics committee has always been ridiculously aggressive about their branding (and no, writing the words-that-cannot-be-named in greek won't save you either). My favourite replacement term is "Summer Games 2012"

I wonder if they are preparing a Superinjunction to prohibit the tweeting of results.

Now, imagine if Christmas had similar sponsors.

Personally, I'd love to see an attempt to prohibit tweeting of results. The Streisand Effect would be glorious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

>'My favourite replacement term is "Summer Games 2012"'

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/12/schedule/4

See Section 3. That's a non-allowed term for anyone not paid up as part of the LOAR. Indeed it appears that "Summer 2012" is also not allowed.

Whoa. I 'm running out of ideas, what do you think about "The Greek Athletics"

I can see the problem with people claiming to be or acting like sponsors of the event. If you pony up the money to sponsor the event you should see the benefit.

However, clamping down on someone saying. "London 2012 Parking".. what is wrong with that? Its fact. Person is providing parking for people attending the 2012 event..

That's exactly the same problem, isn't it? If someone were to pay to be the Official Provider of Carparks to the games, they don't want everyone else to be able to write something which makes it look like they are too. For a slightly more realistic example, lots of places are providing food to people attending the event, but McDonalds pays a lot of money so that they're the only ones that can advertise as "London 2012 Restaurant" or whatever.

"Clive's Parking. 1/2 mile from the Olympic venue."

"Half Mile Parking."

I don't see how you can possibly trademark a year, which is a factual statement.

You enshrine it as a by-law of the games.

You can get away with a lot in specific cases of trademarks. For example, Cadbury have been able to exert some protection of their usage of purple, but only for chocolate wrappers - not for everything. Similarly here, I can see how the IOC or LOCOG or whoever can exert control over "London 2012" which has a huge association with their brand. Generally it comes down to a fuzzy test of "would it be misleading", and for most people "London 2012 Hotel" probably would be if the hotel wasn't really associated with the event.

I don't think anybody questions if this is legal in the UK. Just if this is sane. And it clearly is not. Of course, I can see why there should be a trademark for "London Olympics 2012", but why for just the city name and the year?

Also, I think it really clashes with the supposed spirit of the games. If it is not a friendly, peaceful and international battle of athletes, but just another event where McDonald's and Samsung can advertise without any distractions, why do we need it? And why should a city finance it?

> Cadbury have been able to exert some protection of their usage of purple

To be fair, Cadbury has trademarked a specific tint of paint that they created (which is the important bit). It just looks surprisingly like purple to the rest of us. ;)

So over at http://www.44con.com/ we have a problem in that 44Con is in London during 2012. We have no sport as far as I'm aware (unless shooting speakers with high volume nerf weaponry counts) but with the changes in the law we have to be really careful about how we promote 44Con, and we were here first!

OK, I won't mention the big London event to anyone. If people are talking about it, I'll mention that I have no interest and walk away.

Have Bumblebee from Transformers say the message for you. He could dig into radio archives, historical records,youtube videos, get clippings on the fly and construct the message in his style. I bet no-one can object that

When we inevitably balls it up, it'll be called the "Woe-lympics" or something similarly stupid by the press anyway, as is the way of the British press ;-) We might as well start from that.

While they'll probably go a little too far, this is a good thing. The Olympics are an incredibly expensive event to put on that many people love and someone needs to pay for it. There are a limited number of people who can visit the games due to cost and seating restrictions, so TV advertising is required. If this kind of thing doesn't happen, the value and therefor the price of the sponsorship drops, leading to a worse Olympics for all.

It doesn't matter if you don't like sport or the IOC or the fact that London won the Olympics. This is the situation and it would be imprudent to act any other way.

Spending more money on an event does not necessarily make it better.

Plenty of other great sporting events are held without these kind of ridiculous measures.

Fine, they can claim Olympics, Olympic Games, etc. Maybe even Summer Games.

But they simply have no claim to the year or the city name. It's not a little too far, it's far too far.

While I don't disagree with protecting their private IP, don't forget that the Olympics are funded mainly by taxpayer's money in the host country, and the games are generally considered an issue of national pride for competing countries. It's not like the IOC is ethically entitled to complete ownership of the very ancient games, and thus able to treat the whole concept and event as its exclusive private property; unless they agree to cover the full cost.

> The Olympics are an incredibly expensive event to put on that many people love and someone needs to pay for it.

I am continually fascinated by the idea, often proposed in other contexts than this one, that we must spend money as an axiom and then figure out how to fund it as a corollary.

I don't really disagree with your dichotomy: we can either have expensive events or sane intellectual property law, but not both. I'm merely wondering at which meeting we picked one over the other, and what happened to my invitation :-)

I do disagree with the dichotomy; I doubt firms would stop paying to be official sponsors just because others were allowed to use the terms sensibly (i.e. not implying that they were affliated with the Games).

Also, we already have plenty of trademark protections. I don't see why they're not sufficient for the Olympics, given that they seem to work fine for everything else.

I think the argument goes that they're such a high-profile target for trademark infringement that it would be impossible for them to police and enforce it to a sufficient degree without extra state protection.

Because the IOC demanded that their minions be designated a privileged class. The parliament of the day fell over themselves to give in to those demands.

They had to! The games might have gone to Paris. Wouldn't that have been terrible?

someone needs to pay for it

That someone is the taxpayer to the tune of GBP 10Bn - 5x the original budget.

For comparison: total sponsorship revenues are £700m http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/05032012/58/london-2012-london...

You've got a pretty big leap there between "TV advertising is required" and "we need to ban everyone from saying the words London 2012 and cover up logos across the city".

I'm pretty sure that selling TV advertising during sporting events is possible even without new draconian IP laws being passed.

Also: every idiot marketer in the company would be trying to pull off some annoying stunt to get marketing value from it.

Worth noting: Whereas the host city might make some money or lose a lot of money on hosting an Olympic Games, the IOC always makes a lot of money from each Games.

I believe a lot of British people have the right to complain because their taxpayers dollars are going towards this. Far more than the sponsorship agreement potential that demanded restriction of speech.

Essentially it's a net-negative economic policy. I'm not sure why it's beneficial for any country to host it when history has shown that it had caused violation of liberties, losses, environmental issues, no tourism increase, etc.

The little shit who lands the deal gets to say "I brought the Olympics to London". That's why. Whether that's actually a good thing is not only immaterial, it's never even given a moment's thought.

Britain been doing a good job shitting on its liberties already, though. I'm not sure the Olympic Games are going to make such a big difference. So, I suppose that's good?

Or the irony that the bunch of thieving lying scum that are now claiming the credit are the bunch of thieving lying scum that opposed it at the time - and the bunch of thieving lying scum that brought it are now criticizing the bunch of thieving lying scum that are going to run it.

If there was any measurable difference between the two brands of thieving lying scum it would be funny.....

It's expensive because of the all the bullshit that comes along with it. Bringing in athletes from around the world and having them compete, while expensive, could be paid for with ticket sales and perhaps a sensible amount of advertisements.

The trouble is when you force the host to spend hundreds of millions on infrastructure each time, when more than adequate facilities are already available. It's expensive because they make it so, not because it has to be.

For my part I won't be watching the Olympics and I'll go out of my way to avoid its sponsors for the duration of the Games and for some time afterward.

Yes but if it only attracted people that were actually interested in the sport it could be held on a school playing fields on a wednesday afternoon

>The trouble is when you force the host to spend hundreds of millions on infrastructure each time //

Unfortunately it's the politicians, that want to be part of something big, spending other people's money, that choose to spend hundreds of millions. If all the countries simply said to the IOC "we're not going to spend silly money, haven't you heard there's a recession on" then it could all be done with existing infrastructure.

Meanwhile the UK could have bought everyone a Raspberry pi, a pushbike, trainers and a tracksuit and still had change to offer a free year of swimming with the £160-200 per person budget (£10bn to £12bn/ 60 million people).

So can we all just stop talking about the Olympics altogether then? Normally I'd have a problem with restrictions on speech like this, but if it means nobody can ever mention the fucking Games ever again, I'm for it. Good riddance.

"the fucking Games"

That has a great ring to it. Perhaps everyone wishing to refer to the games without being sued should adopt it.

Or even more fitting to the location, "the bloody Games"

Is this really at all interesting? This is the same sort of thing that happens with the Super Bowl year after year.

Some of us don't know much about super bowl, because it's a single country single sport thing. 2012 Olympic games in London are more universal. I didn't know anything about the super bowl issue.

This is nothing new.

The IOC always swings a big copyright hammer in every host city, even if a business has existed for a long time.

If there is any business that even remotely has a word starting with "Olymp" (think McDonald's and their litigiousness with the Mc prefix, but worse) in its name, such as a Greek restaurant, they'd better expect to be told to change your name. Local governments play along with the IOC because of the large amounts of money at play.

While the Olympic games are a great thing, the IOC, however, is run just like any other business, and can be just as dirty/evil.

I wonder if they would do anything about the Olympia Exhibition Centre. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_%28London%29

That's a good question (I'm Canadian and can't speak to London). I know most of the small businesses they go after can't afford the legal fees to fight them.

In Vancouver, our House of Commons gave the IOC an exemption that allowed them to go after small businesses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns_and_controversies_over...

While the NFL's actions with the Super Bowl are silly, they don't apparently have a overly strong legal standing to bar people from even using those words[1]. After all, trademarks exist to avoid consumer confusion, not to bar all other entities from even mentioning the mark (although, it seems that lately trademarks are being abused and the law being twisted into expanding the purpose of trademarks).

In London, extra powers been granted via parliamentary act[2], and even private security contractors may be able to enter homes to enforce these rules[3]. This is a pretty large difference.

1: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120202/04205917638/hey-ad...

2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Olympic_Games_and_Paraly...

3: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/21/olympics2012-civil-...

In the US, everyone has pretty much standardized on "the Big Game" as a euphemism to refer to the Super Bowl. This article proposed a euphemism for the London Olympics (although satirically). Seems like a good idea to me.

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