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Comment by soult | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

>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?

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?

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.

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

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.

"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?

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! :-)

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?

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.

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